Fear of the Dark
by Dark Hope Assassin
Summary: Ino had always wondered why people feared the dark. At twenty two, she still didn't know why they did. All that mattered was she did as well. And it would soon consume her and there was nothing anyone could do about it… so she'd thought. [NaruIno]
1. Acquaintances

_Fear of the Dark_

* * *

Ino had always wondered when she had been young and naïve why people feared the dark. 

Because, really, there was nothing scary in the lack of light. Everything was still the same at night as it was during the day—you just had to squint a little more to see it just as well.

She'd wondered why most her friends feared the dark because she knew that the monsters that they were told by their parents were lurking in the darkness did not—_could not_—exist.

But Ino had grown up and found that there were, in fact, very much real monsters brooding in the lightlessness; monsters that could be the last thing that ever happened to you if you weren't quick enough, capable enough… strong enough.

At twenty-two, Ino still didn't know why others feared the dark. But she didn't dwell on it anymore either.

All that mattered was that _she_ was afraid of the darkness as well.

And it was ironic, really, because she was a kunoichi—a very important part of the reconnaissance shinobi force too—and it was ridiculous of her to be afraid of her greatest ally. There was no reconnaissance without aid of stealth and stealth was greatly aided by the darkness, it allowed you a bit more freedom of movement.

It was even more ridiculous of a grown woman to shudder slightly when the lights went out because she was chakra sensitive and reasonable enough to know that there was nothing in her hollow apartment aside from her and yet, when the light played with the tasteful curtains, she couldn't help but pull the comforter a little higher up her body, in a vain attempt to chase away the paranoia that the darkness begot in her.

How could she _not_ be afraid of the same thing that helped her so much if it hypocritically helped her enemy just the same? How could she not fear that which in skilled hands became a formidable weapon? How could she not be wary when she was well aware that there was _always_ someone better than you, someone who is more at ease with the darkness, can use it better, can use it against you without strain?

And how was she to feel safe when even the darkness behind her eyes was no longer comforting, her nightly visions haunted by crimson irises with hypnotizing windmills swirling in them? How could she not fear the dark that housed the twin demon orbs of the defector, that accommodated them so well against her?

She _hated_ the dark, because the dark made her weak. The dark made her disoriented and scared. The darkness obscured her goals and dreams and became only a vortex of blackened emotions that she didn't want to feel; emotions that seared her whole being when they reached into her.

She detested the dark because it was so vast, so ever-encompassing that it seemed like it could swallow her whole and not leave a memory of her existence behind, as if she had never been there in the first place. And she loathed that thought, with every fiber of her being, for she had not grown up to be someone so impressive in character, with such great impact on those around her, to be so easily discarded.

Yet she was a kunoichi. It was part of a kunoichi's life to live in the dark, deal with it and learn to use it well. It was either kill or be killed in the cruel game that was her life. You either adapt or perish. Idiotic things as being skittish of a little lack-light were not tolerated in the harsh reality. There was no room for fear when you have chosen the path of a tool for your village to use as it saw fit.

She eradicated her fear of the dark every night and every morning it came back full-force, as if she'd never given it any effort at all. It was a vexing vicious circle that she couldn't seem to break out of.

So she lived on, in the darkness which she abhorred because she dreaded, away from prying eyes, inconspicuous to all her colleagues. She lived on, alone and cowering in the darkness, unwilling to ask anyone's help anymore, because, really, who would help her when she couldn't even help herself?

Because there was no way logical, down-to-earth Yamanaka Ino was _truly_ afraid of a little darkness, right?

And she assured herself she was content with maintaining that notion.

* * *

As she lurked in the sparse light of the dingy pub she mused that the darkness had its benefits and good points as well. 

When it was so dark, no one could see her fears, her remorse, her shame or her failures. Her flaws were expertly hidden away in the lack of lighting, not to be looked upon by prying eyes. No one needed to know that she was just as human, just as imperfect, just as capable of mistakes, as everyone else was as long as she had the darkness to shroud her faults.

For when the bar was so slightly illuminated no one could see just how deadened her eyes were, just how deep her rue ran. And it was better that way, because she didn't really need anyone's help at all. She had her accursed darkness, that double-faced bastard that a shinobi could not live without and yet couldn't live within. Frightening—this paradox—wasn't it? It was almost enough to make you laugh out loud. Almost…

She stirred languidly the contents—or rather the lack of such—of her shot glass, eyeing the melting ice with unseeing cornflower blue orbs. Her vision had long since blurred irreversibly it seemed but the fog stifling her mind was still not thick enough to suit her fancy. It didn't not wrap well around the thoughts that she didn't want to access at least until morning, it did not give her the absolution that she so desired yet.

The blonde felt and heard a large body—male, she deduced at once—slump on the stool next to hers but as long as the person did not bother her she could see no reason to bother him either.

She lifted the empty glass to the bartender.

"Hey, uncle; be a nice guy and give another one of these, would you?" She shook the glass suggestively before placing it on the counter, waiting for her refill.

She was positively drunk but not drunk enough not to feel someone's gaze on her. She didn't pay that any heed either though—she was used to being ogled at in such vulgar places like pubs where all the abominations of society seemed to gather at all times.

The bartender gave her a critical look which she returned effortlessly. He sighed and shook his head dejectedly while giving in, refilling her glass, and she could have sworn she heard him mutter something about "Deteriorating youth nowadays" and "Drowning misery in alcohol, inebriating themselves" but she couldn't have cared less. Not when her salvation was this close to her.

She was brining the glass to her pinkish lips when a painfully familiar voice—though _not_ in its regular (endlessly annoying) pitch, which was a first to her—interrupted the ware's journey to her mouth.

"Is it really a good idea to get yourself wasted in a bar full of men without any inhibitions who are equally as wasted?"

Her hand hovered before her face as if frozen in place. She sighed in exasperation and guzzled down the alcohol in the glass in a breath. She ordered another one from the grumbling bartender, knowing that when dealing with this particular individual one needed to be properly inadequate not to try and strangle the life out of him. She dreaded even the moment she'd have to _look _at him, what was left for anything else?

Slowly, the young woman turned a bored and flushed from all her drinking face to the newly arrived man, scrutinizing his listless cerulean eyes that seemed to shine through the barely existent light in the pub to bury right into her.

"Honestly, Uzumaki," she began with a blatantly agitated tone, "don't you have someone else to pester with your profound advice in life? I seriously don't feel like I want to hear anymore of it."

Naruto watched with what seemed complete disinterest how she received another shot of whatever she was on which she in turn immediately downed.

He'd been watching her repeating the same thing over and over again from a distant corner of the pub for some time before finally deciding on coming over and seeing what was the cause of her drinking frenzy. She was usually quite averse to alcohol, going as far as to say it tasted awful on several occasions in the past. He was frankly curious.

"Did something happen?"

Ino knew her hand would start shaking as if in a seizure if she reached for the glass then. So instead she balled her hands tightly into fists and threw Naruto a death glare that was lost on his dense nature. The concern that his cerulean eyes radiated was a bit too much for her to swallow.

"Even if something _did_ happen, you're the _last_ person I'd go to."

Angry at the guy's impertinence—that dumb blond busybody—Ino swung her miraculously refilled glass again and gulped down another portion of the throat-searing liquid. The world was out to get her if it sent her _Naruto_, of all people, when she least wanted to see any familiar face.

"Go rain your sympathy on someone else, preferably a person who actually needs it." She stirred the remaining crystalline drop of melted ice in front of her hardened azure eyes. "Because I, for one, do not."

Naruto had always been knuckleheaded, never knowing when to stop. But his annoying factor was obviously at its peak that night because he didn't get the message and, instead of turning tail like every part of her body was screaming at him to do, he leant on the counter on his elbow, propping his chin up on the heel of his hand.

"Yeah?" he intoned conversationally in a noncommittal voice. "Could have fooled me."

This time the glass did make a cracking sound under the pressure of her tight grip. Ino was leaning on every ounce of sanity she still had left not to slug the idiot in the ugly mug for that comment just now.

How dare he just waltz over to her and start asking her questions as if he had any right to know the answers? How dare he look at her with that absolutely pathetic face? Wasn't _he_ just a ray of fucking sunshine? He rent the darkness enveloping her as if it was his place to do so. What an irksome guy… She felt an urge and—before she could think better of it—she gave into it.

"What would _you_ know how it feels to lose your parents, dead last? It's not as if you ever had any to begin with," she hissed out venomously, her words carefully picked so they could cut deeper than the sharpest blade.

She hadn't called him that in ten years, dead last. Ten years in which she'd grown to know him better, to admire him and respect him. Yet in her ire she knew well what to say, to call him the one way his once brother had demoted him without even giving him the time of the day, just to make him feel if even just a fraction of the pain that she was experiencing.

But the bastard took even that tiny victory away from her as the only sign that she'd hit a nerve was a shadow crossing his eyes before it was gone with the next blink of his lids. The asshole… Was he actually invincible?

He looked sympathetically at her.

"My condolences," he offered in a voice barely above a whisper.

And it pissed her off; that he seemed so sincere trying to recollect something about her parents even though he didn't even know them, hadn't even cared any about them while they were still alive. It annoyed her as hell but all the indication she gave was the tight narrowing of her eye brows and a barely discernible eye twitch that was gone almost the moment it surfaced. It wasn't his fault he was so stupid. It wasn't his fault he irritated her so without even trying.

It wasn't _his_ fault _they_ were dead…

Well, that and she felt a bit guilty for purposefully trying to dig into an obviously gaping wound.

So instead of biting his head off—which was her initial choice of reaction—she opted for calling to the bartender instead.

"Hey, uncle; won't you give my friend here some of that good stuff as well? He seems keen on getting some."

The man behind the counter eyed Naruto expectantly who in turn only shrugged his shoulders lightly in consent. The elder male shook his head and sighed, doing as his drunken lady customer desired, not very eager to see what would happen if he didn't.

She appeared to be one of those troublemaking ones if she didn't have her way while under the steady hold of inebriation. By the kunai pouch he'd seen on her slender thigh on her way over to the stool when she'd entered, she was a shinobi too—all the more reason not to push his luck. After so many years of tending to a bar you learnt a thing or two about the kinds of people that frequented them.

When his drink arrived, instead of following Ino's lead and downing it as soon as it was in her sight, Naruto just eyed critically the small glass with the crystalline clear liquid. Losing interest in it soon, he turned his studious gaze towards his companion on the counter, who in turn only glared at him. Her attempt at intimidating him fell flat on its face considering how blurred her vision already was though.

"Don't be a prude, Naruto! Drink up, drink up!" When he didn't relent, she took her own full glass and raised it to him, "For the Yamanakas!" and drank at her toast.

Naruto sighed lightly through his nose. She was being cynical. He wasn't sure what to make of it. This wasn't exactly what he had planned on when he'd made his way over. Hell, he hadn't even _wanted_ to play the part of the knight in shining armor for her and neither did he want all the drama but his sense of propriety had prohibited him from leaving without doing something for his vaguely-friend-like-person when she seemed perturbingly bent on getting herself stoned so bad she wouldn't remember her name in the morning. It was just _wrong _to leave a girl behind when she seemed to lose herself completely to the glass, you know?

That is why Naruto did the gentlemanly thing and downed his glass in a gulp under the slightly surprised and even just a tiny bit amused glance of his recently promoted drinking buddy.

"And they said that you were absolutely hopeless at everything back in the day."

He didn't appreciate her joke or sarcasm and his sardonically cocked brow should have told her that but it mattered little when she planned not to remember the night at all tomorrow.

"You're quite a natural when it comes to drinking, Naruto-kun."

She was adding the suffix just to spite him and it annoyed him that he could actually _feel_ it. The least she could have done was try and be subtle about her resentment. And—while his overall attitude hadn't suffered much change—over the years the blonde Hokage-wannabe had learnt how to retaliate to being poked fun at and sneered upon by his peers.

"Here—have another!" she interjected.

Ino raised her own glass in another toast but this time he didn't dignify her attempt at mocking him. She shrugged her dainty shoulders—which were very much too exposed for a bar of such nature at that particular hours of the day—and mimicked his actions from a minute ago, the scalding hot liquid burning her esophagus right down to the pit of her stomach. She grimaced at the feeling and let out a hiss.

"Got'ta love the feeling of approaching absolution. Don't you?"

Her obviously forced attempts at small talk did nothing to soothe his rising ire.

"Haven't you had a bit too much to drink tonight, Ino-chan?" he asked tentatively, putting a hand over her glass when she made a move to bring it to her lips again.

Neither noticed how much larger his hand was than hers.

Not that it was something overly important to note in the first place too.

Ino's slightly dazed corn-flower blue eyes bore into Naruto's remotely concerned cerulean eyes, not really looking for anything there. She made a show of thinking his query over, scrunching her face up slightly and rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

It was all a good guy could do not to sigh in aggravation at her behaviour. His _students_ in his genin three-man cell were more mature than her at that moment. And they were just _five years old_…

"I can still feel perfectly well every inch of my body which would go to say that nothing has really gone to my head at current so, no, I think I am going to stay here a while."

She pulled her wrist free of his hold and gave him the fakest and most saccharine smile he had ever seen in his life. And that was saying something, because he was one of the people who had had to force those on their faces one too many times.

"Your concern is quite uncalled for and very much not appreciated so if that was all you wanted to talk to me about, do feel free to excuse yourself and scurry off, doing whatever it is you do when you're not pushing your nose into others' business."

He had been about to leave—really. There was absolutely _no one_ on the face of the Earth that would stand that much insult and wouldn't want to leave. But seeing how much _she_ wanted that to happen just tickled his fancy a bit; just enough to make him compromise with his sanity and stay just to annoy the daylights out of her the way she had tried to do with him.

He wasn't vindictive; oh, by any means, _no_. But she had it coming and she would get what was coming for her because a future Hokage's main worry is the well-being of his villagers… even if they were bitchy drunken kunoichi.

Little he knew that Ino was much more annoyed than she let on.

He _was_ spoiling her fun after all. He waltzed over unannounced, shoving his unwanted help in her face and expecting her to just surrender her glass like that and just go peacefully home? Whoever would give in to _that_ kind of persuasion?

She hated it when others intruded on her private time. There were few instances when she actually _sought out_ the despised darkness, but when she did, she usually had a good goddamn reason for it. How was she supposed to submerge her mind in the dark absolution if he kept pestering her with his questions and pretence kindness and worry?

She hadn't _asked_ him to come to her and try to save her from the dark. She'd been perfectly well on her own, drowning in the sea of forgetfulness that bore no light. And then _he_ interjected, dragging her back to the shore of utter consciousness because she still had a long way to go with the number of drinks to become a hopeless cause for saving.

She hadn't wanted him to come over and bring his accursed natural radiance with him. She didn't want any of it. He was from the type of people that she abhorred in her guts—even when he was broody, angsty and a quiet drunk he was just too goddamn _bright_! …Y'know?

Ino's perceptive ears heard him slide off the chair sluggishly and trod away from her in a steady pace. She heaved a sigh of relief and rolled her eyes upwards, as if to thank any higher instance that had taken mercy on her.

"Good riddance," she muttered under her breath and relaxed back into her stool, closing her eyes to enjoy the sensation of her mind growing progressively numb. Sheer bliss, that it was.

And she could _finally_ enjoy it on her own, too—now _that_ was truly priceless, after she'd got to know how it felt when she _wasn't_ on her own.

She'd thought that she'd be able to enjoy her alone brooding time a little while longer, too, when she heard a bottle—which was still full, judging by the sound it made when connecting with the surface of the counter—land by the side of her hand. She looked out of the corner of her eye to see who was bothering her _this_ time (there was just no end to the busybodies tonight) only to groan in despaired annoyance, her head lolling back on her neck dejectedly. She made for a really pathetic sight, she was sure, but at that particular moment in time she couldn't have cared less.

You see, she was just _so_ busy cursing every divinity there was for even _entertaining_ the thought of letting a… a _creature_ such as Uzumaki _freaking_ Naruto survive to his twenty-second anniversary of being born with no realistic prospects of his life ending in the near future, to care about much else.

"Now, now, Ino-chan, I know we got off on the wrong foot." The blond abomination sat back in his seat, one hand still clutching the bottle of alcohol. "But I have an idea that I'm sure that you're going to _love_."

Ino cocked an unimpressed finely shaped brow at the thought that Naruto, of all people, could even know the first thing about her to be able to talk like that but she decided to let it slide just this once in favour of his much more curious insinuation.

"Do you, really?"

"Since we're both going to stay here a while, I thought I could challenge you to see which one of us endures alcohol better, you know, just to see who's the better sport between the two of us." He laughed light-heartedly, his face alight with mirth.

The blond girl's brows furrowed with aggravation again. '_Too damn bright_…'

"You're willing to compete… with me?" She said slowly, as if it was inconceivable even to think that kind of thing.

Of course, she completely omitted to comment that he was talking to her as if she was one of his goofy goons with which he could have belching contests and 'Whose-thing-below-the-belt-is-ugliest' juxtapositions. She was a lady and it went without saying that such language was not suited before one.

Naturally, there were times when a lady forgot she was a lady. Like when her (she'd deny it hotly if said to her face) larger than ordinary ego was being—unjustly so—doubted.

He shrugged noncommittally, as if what he'd just off-handedly thrown into the conversation did not come on par with obscene blasphemy in the middle of a sermon in front of a premise full with fanatically religious patriarchal men with serious anger management problems.

"Well, I figured you wouldn't wan'na, since you've probably been drinking a while and it would be just unfair to start now—"

"You're on!" She slammed her forearm on the counter as she said that, interrupting forcefully his tirade that _obviously_ meant to disregard her.

If there was one thing she really, really hated, it was to be looked down upon, for whatever reason. She wasn't about to let this mistake of nature treat her like a second-rate human being just because she was mourning.

"But I'm going to warn you now that I'm really good at this despite my appearance so you better ready yourself to grovel at my feet when I beat your ass, ha!"

Naruto smirked semi-conceitedly, crossing his arms over his well-built chest.

"Is that so… Well, we'll just have to see, right?" He lifted his glass in a silent toast that Ino indulged with one of her own grudgingly. "Cheers!"

The drinking game was on. And Ino didn't plan on losing it.

* * *

But things don't always necessarily go as we plan them to, do they? Ino found that to be just the case with her drinking win. 

Naruto had to admit that she did fare quite well though. She'd drunk so much before he joined her and she'd drunk even more after he did. To her credit, even when it was becoming increasingly obvious by how flustered her expression was becoming that she was getting more and more inebriated, she never quite let her mind sway under the effects of the alcohol.

If anything, some of her more infuriating qualities amplified painfully (bitchiness, loudness, snarky comments frequency and so on and so forth) but she was still one hundred percent Ino. He was sincerely surprised and not entirely unpleasantly so. Sure, it had taken him a bit more time and money to get her wasted enough to be able to drag her out of the pub—semi-unconscious too, mind you, because he'd figured in the first few minutes of their so-called "game" that it was the only way to get her out of that place in her current state of mind—but it was worth the useful knowledge. He could use a drinking buddy the next time because everyone else he could opt for wasn't nearly as endurable as she was.

As they trudged on slowly, one of her slender arms slung over his much broader shoulders, Ino all but hanging lifelessly from said appendage in his firm hold, there was something that the blond vessel couldn't keep to himself for some reason; perhaps he felt that he had to do her justice for her earlier performance? He didn't know.

He had just always lacked this infinitely beneficial quality that most living creatures possessed by default—self-preservation instinct they called it. Fancy name for something so simple, isn't it? He was sometimes so simple-minded that you can't help but wonder why, oh why he still hasn't acquired it, after getting smacked around so much by his pink-haired teammate.

"I have something to confess, Ino-chan, because it's just too unfair to leave you in the dark about it."

She gave an undignified grunt as her heavy-lidded swimming eyes continued boring into the ground she dragged her feet against. She hated that phrase, "leaving someone in the dark"; it was such an insensitive phrase, especially when used with someone who hated the darkness as much as she did.

She wasn't about to tell Naruto that though. There was as much beating as a proud girl's pride could take for one single night.

As if it wasn't enough that she could barely stand on her own and he didn't even have a difficulty with walking in a straight line, she wouldn't grant him the pleasure of knowing her greatest secret (darkest one too, and she could have laughed out loud at that thought for the irony of it, if she wasn't sure that it was something only hopelessly drunk people did, laugh for no apparent reason and she was _not_ hopelessly drunk just a bit tipsy, that's all).

"I, uh… kind'a never get drunk, no matter how much I have to drink." Her fine brow twitched at that little piece of information. "I guess Kyuubi makes quick work of the toxins or something but it never gets to my head, no matter what I do. So, erm, I knew beforehand what the outcome would be… which is why I suggested it." He grinned guiltily at her profile next to him and her eyes narrowed even more. "Sorry about leading you on like that."

She hadn't just been humiliated. She had been humiliated _on purpose_. Now that made things quite different. She was sure that there had to be something worse that could happen to you. She just couldn't think of anything at the moment.

Suddenly she wanted to have as little physical contact with this foul creature that had made her seem so ridiculous as possible, given the predicament she found herself in, what with being unable to focus on anything at all if she didn't particularly strive for it.

She snatched her arm back from him rather abruptly and the action almost had her lose her balance. With all the mercy of the Heavens above and the grace she possessed naturally, she managed to stay upright and take a few wobbly steps on her uncertain feet on her own.

"Brilliant," she muttered to herself after a few meters of dragging herself onward with Naruto hot on her tail like a homeless puppy.

She hadn't felt pathetic while getting drunk but she definitely did at current. _This_ was definitely _not_ the way she'd hoped to spend the night mourning her parents' death. This… this irksome sobriety of mind—born from the presence of another while trying to get inebriated—was just as much as she could take before she started feeling the urge to rip things to shreds to vent _some_ of her frustration.

And the fact that she had a provoking factor in the face of one endlessly bothersome Uzumaki Naruto definitely did _not_ help soothe her temper. Which only led her to conclude, more firmly this time, and with a point-making roll of her slightly mismatched eyes,

"Just freaking _brilliant_!"

It helped even less that he walked beside her as if she was fragile or would topple over herself any minute now… which she nearly did several times, but that is just besides the point now, isn't it?

"I know you're probably angry—and you perhaps have every reason to—but I'm sure it'd be a lot better if you just—" He began to coax her but was halted mid-sentence by the extended forefinger shoved in his face. He blinked several times, as if attempting to _blink_ the shock away.

"_Damn_ right I have every reason to, Uzumaki and, _no_, I am perfectly fine walking on my own. I've been able to for twenty-something years now and I hadn't needed your help _once_ during that time—I don't plan on starting now." She nodded curtly to herself after her little independence statement and turned on her heel to get back to marching towards her flat.

Or as close to marching as she could get without letting either of her feet really leave the ground.

He seemed just as determined _not_ to respect her strive for independence though. How could she tell? It was quite simple, when he kept following and pestering her even after she'd said that to his face. Didn't that guy know when to quit?

"Well, I got you in this predicament—" but he was once again cut short by her brisk words before he could get an entire sentence out. That should have been hint number one for him to take a hike. _Men_…

"And _I_ am going to get myself out of it. And there will be no cause for you to worry, because the moment I can't see your ugly mug will be the one that _all_ my troubles go away." There was just so much bite to her words that his feet temporarily ceased to work. This led him to staying, nailed to the spot, in the midst of the deserted dusty street of Konoha, staring at the hunched back of the retreating female.

In that moment, he couldn't help but wonder—why was he still pushing himself? As far as chivalry was concerned, he'd done the gentlemanly thing by getting her out of that bar (even though he'd been _forced_, he reasoned to himself, to resort to not-very-chivalrous ways of accomplishing that) and, since she was knuckleheaded enough to demand getting home by herself, who was he to stop her?

He really would be better off leaving right then and doing both of them a favour. _But_… He hung his head against his collarbone in dejection, heaving a great sigh from the exhaustion that was yet to come.

When his head rose again, it was with new determination that he faced her depressingly slouched figure, lugging itself down the narrow street. Sometimes he thought he was masochistic but being the good guy really sucked. Big time.

He caught up to her and fell into her step—it wasn't that difficult since she could barely breathe, not to mention move efficiently—facing forward stubbornly as well. She rolled her eyes from his insistence but chose to do the smarter thing and just kept her mouth shut, doing her best not to need the help of the hand that stretched out before her—with the full intention of breaking her fall should it come to that—every time she lurched forward a bit too convincingly.

After many ordeals (not really, but walking itself had become such a challenge these days…), they finally arrived at her block. Before opening the door of the main entrance, she shot him a questioning look that he returned coolly, standing right behind her. She huffed ill-temperedly.

"What, you're going to let yourself in here, too? Have you nothing better to do with your free time than stalk me around?"

"Whatever you say, Ino—just get up those stairs to your flat, if you'd please." He then made a movement as if to usher her inside.

Her jaw hung open and her barely focused eyes blazed suddenly with anger before it wore off, as quickly as it appeared. She glared at him some more, her lips a taut, thin line before she began to ascend the stairs, one at a time to assure she wouldn't fall on him (was he purposefully lagging behind her, to make sure she'd fall on _him_, should it come to that, and not risk breaking her skull open?) because that kind of thing would just annul the point she was trying to make on the entire way here.

"Just to make sure we're clear on this—I go along with what you say because it's what I _intended_ to do in the first place," she informed him over her shoulder while fiddling with her apartment keys. She missed the keyhole. And again. And again. He cringed. "_Not_ because you told me to, got that?"

_And again_…

"Let _me_," he emphasized, prying the keys from her hands before she could object.

He swiftly unlocked the door and swung it open, stepping aside for her to enter, an expectant look on his face. Hers was fixed into one of utter disdain that he discredited completely. Shaking her head in disbelief, the girl made her way inside, not bothering to flick the lights on as she did so.

He tried to step over the threshold after her as well but was stopped by the open palm shoved in front of his nose.

"And _that's_ how far _you_ go. It's been touching—not at all though—this overbearing concern of yours for me that suddenly materialized out of the blue—not that I mind but, seriously, never give me a taste of it _again_—but from here on I can really handle it myself." She crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. The effect wasn't as great when it was obvious she could barely focus on him though. "So you're free to crawl back to whatever hole you crawled out of in the first place. It's been really _pleasant,_"—and she said the word with the same tone she would have cursed someone to their grave—"chatting with you tonight. Ta-ta!"

To add some drama, she slammed the door in his face. Once she could no longer see him, she nodded to herself, a pleased—and very much deranged for an onlooker—grin slid on her face. Content with a job well done she made a turn to go to her room only to stop dead in her tracks when she was encountered once again by Naruto's skeptic frown.

She seriously started to ponder if she needed some professional help because she was _dead certain_ she'd seen him on the other side of that door when she'd closed it.

As if reading her thoughts—which was a _dreadful_ idea in itself—the blond abomination told her in an off-hand tone,

"You do know that I am a shinobi specializing in the Shadow Clone technique, right?"

It was all the explanation she needed to hear. Not that she needed the reminder how wasted she must be to forget something like _that_—the guy only performed the technique several hundred times in every fight and sometimes even for daily chores if he needed an extra hand.

Ino groaned with all the despair that she felt building up inside her.

"Don't you have someone else's night you could ruin? This is getting very tiresome and I meant it when I said not seeing your face would make everything just _so much better_." She slumped on the sofa in her pragmatically compact in size living room and buried her head in her hands. She could already feel a headache coming on and she'd always thought hangover didn't catch up with you until sunrise the day following the drowning of your consciousness.

Naruto snorted.

"Really, Ino, you shouldn't show so much gratitude for me taking the time of my day to make sure you don't make a complete fool out of yourself in public when actually I should have just sat back and enjoyed the spectacle—you're going to make me blush with your extreme flattery." He went over to her and sat on a chair opposite her.

The blond girl exhaled a calming breath before pulling her hands away from her face. She was so exhausted… and all she really wanted was to be left alone. How was she supposed to let herself break down for her loss properly when there was someone in the room to witness it? She was Yamanaka Ino—_parentless_ Yamanaka Ino, as of today… or rather yesterday, since it was a bit past midnight—and she did _not_ cry her eyes dry in front of others.

Especially not annoying chatterboxes like her 'pal' Naruto here.

"You want me to show gratitude? Alright, Naruto, gratitude it is you'll get."

He steeled himself for another snarky tirade. He could feel it coming.

"Thank you _so_ much sparing me the embarrassment of being ogled for an entire night by a mob of lifeless drunkards and waking up next to someone whose name I won't remember in the morning. _Thank you_ from taking me back from a hellhole of a pub back to my cozy little apartment where everything reminds me of the fact that my parents are no longer among the living and that it happened so suddenly I had no chance to say good-bye to them before they passed on."

Naruto blinked a few times, trying to digest what Ino was saying instead of focusing on how broken her eyes looked at that moment, glazed over from the countless shots she'd taken and the emotion just welled up in her whenever she talked about this. But it was too late to stop her now—she was on a row and it was his entire fault so he'd have to listen raptly, if just out of good manners.

"_Thank you_ a million times over for taking care that I stay sober enough to want to hurt everyone and everything I lay eyes upon just because I'm bitter at the world in general instead of harmlessly slurp my booze on a counter. And, on a related note, I am most deeply sorry for going all PMS on you but, you see, the only two people who ever really _loved_ me for who I am and supported me no matter how badly I screw up everything just up and died and all I could do was just brave the news without given the chance to get stark-raving drunk because this hypocrite of an acquaintance of mine thought he could ride in on his white horse and save me, the damsel in distress, and prove to the world what a good guy he was by refusing me the comfort of oblivion just because it's _wrong_ for a lone girl to get stoned in a bar full of low-lives."

She got up from the sofa after she'd dropped the rock on him, her resent glaringly obvious in her cornflower blue eyes as she scrutinized him.

"I just _can't_ thank you enough for all the _wonderful_ things you did for me in this time of need. As a token of my appreciation, make yourself at home while I go freshen up, huh? We can have chocolate-chip cookies and talk about Academy old stories and get to know each other better now that we're all buddy-buddy like, you know?"

And with that she disappeared behind a door that he presumed was her bathroom. This left him to reevaluate what she'd just said and try to come up with an excuse for still sticking around at this point in time.

He hadn't really needed to come _see_ her get in her apartment—not really. And perhaps his concern for her had been a bit selfish and inconsiderate of what her wishes might be. Instead of getting her pissed drunk and taking her back to her apartment he could have just sat quietly in his corner, sipping his drink and making sure no suspicious folks approached her until she passed out, when he could have carried her home without a hitch in plans—both their evenings would have been fine (or at least so they'd lie to themselves because there _is_ a reason people seek out the glass) and everyone would be safe and happy.

The fact he _was_ in the wrong about her wishes on the subject did not change that she'd been a royal bitch to him all the while, letting him know how much she resented his presence, and behaved freakishly rude, even for Yamanaka Ino.

Naruto sighed deeply. There was no longer any need for his help—there probably never was but there was just _no way_ in hell he would have just _left_ her there to drown her brains where anyone could take advantage of her fragile state of mind, kunoichi or not; it just went against his moral code, though they weren't exactly friends—and his staying was thus required no more. He'd been ridiculed, teased and insulted a few too many times that night and he'd been just as mean to her on many levels so that called for a time out.

Ino was in her apartment, would be soon in her bed, with no pressing threats to her well-being—his mission as a gentleman was complete. And it was a gentleman's duty to know when the appropriate time to leave was and, judging from the results of his chivalrous attempt to help, he'd need to work on that part of being a gentleman.

He pushed himself to his feet and went to Ino's closed bathroom door, knocking softly on it.

"I'll take my leave after I seem to have caused so much damage for one night, Ino-chan, and once again, you have my condolences and my sincerest apology." He sighed again, his shoulders slumping with the sigh. "I meant well, you should know that…" He stood, silent, awaiting any response from her, before venturing on, "Well… Bye then and take good care of your head because you'll have the mother of all hangovers tomorrow."

When there was still no reply—no sound of movement whatsoever too—from the opposite side of the door, he took the hint and took his leave.

It was odd, though, that Ino wouldn't gloat or at least throw a last insult at him before his departure. He'd already been nosy enough and if everything was alright in there she'd have his head for it…

Before he knew what had happened, he was already pushing down the handle of the bathroom door.

He winced at the sight that greeted his sore eyes. He _knew_ that it was out of character, this silent treatment that she was giving him, and he had only known the girl for _one_ night.

There, on the tastefully picked tiles lay sprawled the body of Yamanaka Ino, who was very much unconscious.

Massaging his brow, the young shinobi kneeled down to gather her limp body in his arms and get her in a more comfortable position that could assure some quality rest.

As he carried her through her eerily dark and quiet apartment, he noted how light she was, even though that was completely irrelevant to everything.

* * *

She could vaguely remember it was pitch black behind her eyelids before she opened them and it was still pitch black in her apartment when she awoke. The best part was she didn't remember falling asleep or closing her eyes in the first place. And she especially didn't remember crawling into her bed beneath the covers. 

The last things she could recall—blurrily at best too—was throwing up all the booze that she'd drunk and rinsing her teeth before putting the brush down and looking at her reflection in the mirror. And afterwards… afterwards everything went black, which she could guess was her clue that she'd fainted, for whatever reason.

This fabricated explanation of the events following her biting down on Naruto's head a bit too severely than was absolutely necessary was plausible but certainly lacking. It did nothing to clarify why, for goodness' sake, she wasn't bleeding her brains out from knocking her head on the tiles from her fall or how she brought herself to her bed _after_ fainting.

Because she knew for a fact she was no sleepwalker, especially after a night out at a bar.

On a not completely related topic, being afraid of the dark—which was currently surrounding her as the lights were off and it was well around the wee hours of the morning—had a great upside to it. You see, when you're wary and strained, all your senses amplify greatly and when you're a kunoichi that means you can see even the faintest of movements, hear the tiniest of sounds and feel even the slightest shift in the air in the room.

And thanks exactly to that monstrously amplified hearing Ino was able to catch perfectly the sound of someone stirring awake with a barely audible grunt by her bedside. When their sleepy gazes met—even through the total lack of light—all of her questions were answered immediately because there was no mistaking that silhouette.

"You're still here," she remarked coldly, her voice raspy from the mistreatment of her throat.

"I didn't plan on being…" Naruto appeared and sounded disoriented. He turned to massaging his temples for some tension relief. "I'm… sorry, I must have nodded off while just taking a breather." He got up very quickly for someone who'd just awoken from a very uncomfortable sleep in an armrest-less chair. "I'm leaving right away."

She was drunk, not stupid. Her mind was dimmed by the encroaching splitting headache but she could still do the very simple math.

"I put an aspirin for you on the nightstand and got you some water, y'know, for tomorrow—"

"Thank you, Naruto," she interjected, smiling at him and hoping he'd see. He looked a bit uncertain for a second and she almost laughed—humorlessly—at that before clarifying, "I'm really grateful, for… everything."

He made a face.

"Before… or after you passed out on your bathroom tiled floor?"

Now it was her turn to make a face but she passed on it.

"For everything, before and after." She made a pause, wondering how to phrase what she wanted to say for once that night—she'd insulted, both intentionally and not, this guy enough for one day. And, if she had to be honest with herself, he didn't quite deserve _all_ of it—just most of the hell she gave him. "I'm… sure you meant well, even if—at any rate, thanks. For… being there."

Yamanaka Ino was a girl of many, many talents. If there was something she couldn't do naturally well at, she honed her skill at it until she was practically the best at it. But there were two things she really sucked at that she could—would—do nothing about: apologizing and thanking.

Expressing her real feelings had never really been easy for Ino. When the time came to do one of the two aforementioned, she became stiff and her words just couldn't come out of her mouth the way she wanted them to and it always became awkward afterwards.

Like it was at that same moment.

She could practically slice the silence with a knife—it was that tangible.

"You're welcome… Ino-chan," he finally said, his voice only slightly strained. "That's what friends are for, after all."

The blonde girl swallowed dryly, reverting her eyes to her tangled sheets in hopes of keeping the tears from spilling down her cheeks. She had the cover of the darkness, sure, but Naruto wasn't as dim as he made everyone else believe—she'd got to know at least that much tonight—and he was a good shinobi despite all her bitterness in that department about him as well and he'd hear her sniffs and suppressed sobs if she broke apart now, no matter how much she'd try to suppress the sound.

"Well," he began, making her head whip in his direction at her rapt attention, "I guess I better get going now, what with being really late with that unforeseen nap and all."

He laughed in good humor but she wasn't in the laughing mood, really. A sudden panic seized her that she couldn't even explain to herself but she knew that she couldn't let him go home then. If she fell in the darkness one more time she wasn't sure she'd be able to stand up again, not without her parents, not without her mentor, not with most of her friends off on missions all over the continent.

So she did the one thing that would certainly prolong his stay, if even because he'd be too shocked to do much. It was also the one most idiotic thing she could have come up at such a time in the circumstances that she was in.

She kissed Uzumaki bleeding Naruto. Fully; on the lips.

And she was right—he was too shocked to think about leaving. He was too shocked to even move. For about a couple of seconds.

He sprung out of his chair, as though scalded by the contact. He was looking incredulously at her.

"What the hell was that?!" All that he was left to do was start spitting indignantly as if something foul had made it to his mouth because he'd already added insult to injury by turning away so quickly from her. Not that she liked him like that but she was Yamanaka Ino, for Christ's sake! She was the To-Die-For girl of the former Rookie Nine.

"It was a _kiss_," she snapped back in indignation. She was not a person who handled rejection well. "What did it feel like?"

He was really still in shock though, because he made a sound an odd mixture between a snort and a wheeze that was definitely not coherent.

"I _know_ what it was—_why_ did you do it?" His shrill tone was drilling on her nerves. Her temper was sure to flare soon.

"I can kiss whomever I want, whenever I want to!" she declared confidently, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Two hours ago you were insulting me and now you're _jumping_ me?"

Oh, yeah. Her temper was definitely getting the better of her.

"Well, sorry to say that my fancy is obviously easy to sway." She gave him one of those saccharine smiles that he'd seen only once and already despised in his guts.

"_Mine_ isn't and you know I'm in love with Sakura-chan!" Ino rolled her eyes at that—and felt sorry for it because it made her head spin like there was no tomorrow.

"Naruto, repeating it aloud will not make it mutual, so you can stop embarrassing yourself now and let the past go." How did they always end up bickering? It was saddening, truly.

But one thing was sure—he wasn't going to leave anytime soon. The kiss served its purpose. Besides shaking her self-esteem a bit…

"Oh, that's definitely a _great_ way of getting into someone's pants—go on and insult their "silly little crushes" or however you call it because you are so above such frivolous things like affection and compassion and the like, aren't you?"

"Believe it or not, Naruto, I am _not_ emotionless." She scowled deeply before continuing. "And how can you actually call yourself a man? How can you prefer Billboard Brow over _me_? Look at me!" She stood up on her knees on the bed for emphasis. "I am every man's wet dream!"

The blond jounin shook his unruly haired head in disbelief.

"Well, you are not _my_ wet dream. And where do you go off judging people's masculinity simply because they're not smitten with you? Just what is _wrong_ with you today?"

It was immeasurably difficult to pretend that what he'd said hadn't struck a nerve. Hard. It was even more difficult to ignore the rest of what he'd said save for one thing which, for some reason, cut the deepest.

"Oh, am I now?" she muttered beneath her breath, changing tack too quick to slip his notice. "You prefer _Forehead Girl_ over _me_?" It was as if she was talking to herself in low volumes—it was really demented and he didn't appreciate it. It was creeping him out. "And you believe that you love her?"

"I don't believe—I _know_ and you should too – she's your best friend."

Ino was positively seething. On a night of death, she was reminded of a promise that she'd made before another loved one had died. She would _not_ break that promise, the promise of her lifetime, and she would _not_ lose to Sakura—at being a shinobi and in love. Even if she didn't want him that way or like him at all in that aspect (so she told herself).

So the blonde girl stood up and walked over to Naruto, circling around him under his suspicious gaze.

"What are you scheming now?"

"Don't make it sound as if I'm a terrible person with nothing better to do than to come up with stupid plans to get a rise out of people." She stopped in front of him, an indecipherable look in her eyes. She reached out and smoothed the inexistent wrinkles on his shirt. "I was just thinking of putting this 'in love with Sakura' theory to the test for you." She cocked her platinum haired head slightly to the side, making her messy ponytail get a little looser. "You know, just so you can say it confidently next time, I'll give you my best shot."

Naruto had been about to demand what she was raving on about before he was shoved into the nearest wall and pulled down by his neck into a searing kiss.

You see, Ino was a horribly sore loser. There were very few things she _wouldn't_ do to win and it is a widely known fact that all is fair in love and war. And since she was having a competition in both with the wide forehead, she only saw it fitting to throw in some tongue play in there.

Her guinea pig though wasn't as ecstatic as she was about this whole deal. Uzumaki Naruto was a truly devoted boy and when he chose someone, he chose to last. Minor obstacles and setbacks would not hinder him from achieving his ultimate goal and when Sakura finally _saw_ what he'd been seeing all along, it would all be worth it. No one believed it would happen but nobody had believed in his constant blather about becoming a Hokage and now half of Konoha was rooting for him as Rokudaime. Because _he'd made it possible_, because he'd made them believe, made them see what he'd always seen. Why should his love life be any different?

Therefore he considered himself spoken for which was the reason he was so irked by the fact someone he'd been just about ready to let into his life as a close friend—if even just because of her close relationship to the woman he loved with all his might—was letting her hands touch him in ways he'd rather she didn't.

She was all over him—exploring, kissing, ravishing and grinding. Clothes against clothes, chest against chest, she rubbed herself on him, showering passionate kisses all over his face and down his neck which was far more accessible to her given she was almost a head shorter than him. His body was starting to react but it would to anyone who behaved like that. He was a healthy twenty-two year old man, after all.

When her way too adventurous for his taste hands reached his belt and were about to make a go for it, though, he saw that it had to stop.

He grabbed both of her hands firmly, trying his best to keep from hurting her (though on a subconscious level he _really_ wanted to… or not _that_ subconscious). He gathered them in his left—he could hold both her tiny wrists with just one hand—and made her look at him with his other. His expression was a rare one of absolute seriousness.

"Ino… _stop_."

She pulled away slowly.

"You're just drunk and upset. It'll pass."

She shook her head vigorously before looking away. There were fresh tears in her eyes. She really didn't take well to rejection.

"This isn't what you want—it's just the alcohol you had speaking."

"Yeah, you're… absolutely right." They were strained and forced words. "I'm going to be just fine, like you said. It'll pass and then I'll… be great again."

If her voice hadn't cracked he would have believed she would. She was a really convincing liar, especially when she had her back to him.

Make no mistake—Uzumaki Naruto was spoken for, to a lady worth all his time and affections. But he was also a person who'd go to great lengths for the sake of his friends.

Even the newly acquired ones. _Especially_ the newly acquired ones.

He took a step and then another until his chest was flush against her back. He inhaled deeply…

…And then lightly bent his neck to plant a tentative kiss on her exposed neck. Another followed it soon and by the third his hands were gently massaging her shoulders. And this time both noticed how much larger his palms were than hers—he could cover her entire shoulder with one of his hands easily. But the discovery was lost to yet another tender kiss that traveled a little farther up the column of her neck.

"Do you feel anything from that?" he asked her in a voice barely above a whisper in her ear.

Ino knew that there was some kind of right answer to that. She knew that and she just had to find it. Again, she was drunk, not stupid.

"Nothing," she returned in the same volume.

"See? That's all the proof you need to calm you down that it's just the alcohol." He smiled and backed away from her. She was unpleasantly aware of the disappearance of his body's warmth. It made her feel like she was in a freezing cold room instead of the comfy temperature of her abode.

She nodded and went to sit on her bed. Before her legs gave out beneath her for lying through her teeth. Before the flock of butterflies burst out of her tummy because this was not a little white lie she'd just said. Because, if that little stunt had been proof for anything, it was that it wasn't the alcohol speaking and that she needed to _sit_ because she had a _problem_ that hadn't been there before he'd sat down next to her at that bar.

"You'll be good as new tomorrow morning, I promise you that." He smiled reassuringly at her but she wasn't looking. He didn't let it faze him one bit though. "You just need to get some rest, is all."

Usually, this kind of discovery was cause of happiness, for giddiness and for excitement. Not in her case though. It was mortifying.

And the light that she'd been holding onto for the entire night like a drowning man to a lifeline was flickering and slipping away from her grip just like light always tended to do.

And she was _horrified_… Horrified of the darkness that she just noticed was embracing the whole room, the darkness that was encompassing her heart.

Ino pulled her knees up and embraced them with unsteady arms. Her companion noted that as well.

"I think I should get going now but if you need something—anything!—you know where to find me." He looked at her, as if to assure himself she'd be fine, before turning to go for the door.

But he didn't make it very far.

"Actually…" a shaky voice began, cracking under emotion. "There _is_ something…"

He was back by her side in a breath—it was really amazing.

"What is it?" he asked in a hushed voice as he sat down next to her huddled figure.

She didn't say anything for a while, fighting an internal battle that she was bound to lose some day or another.

"This is going to be so humiliating…" She muttered to herself while burying her face in her knees.

"Well, if it will make you feel any better, I could share a ton of humiliating stories after that." He laughed lightly and she felt a bit more certain about saying what she wanted to say. He had the most mysterious of ways to make someone relax and it seemed he did it so naturally, soothe people's fears.

All the more reason to try to get this out of her system.

"Naruto…" She sounded like she was a hair's breadth away from a mental breakdown. "I'm just… so afraid."

He didn't know what to do with a crying girl—he really had hoped it wouldn't come to that. He knew the basics but he really sucked at consoling people.

"You're probably going to laugh at me…" She sniffed long and hard. "But I can't help it. I tried to fight it but it won't go."

"What won't?" he prompted, his voice lighter than ever before, coercing, coaxing, tentative not to be the last thing that would make the proverbial dam break.

She looked at him with tear-strained cheeks through the darkness of the room and he was taken aback. He would have never thought Ino capable of crying. Ino was… well, Ino and crying was for girls like Sakura, who were over-emotional and… delicate… fragile.

He'd just never considered Ino was as well.

"I'm so afraid of the dark, Naruto…" she whimpered, before starting to rock lightly back and forth onto her comfortable mattress.

It was true that Naruto was uncomfortable with showing affection and giving consolation. He knew what to do generally but he just didn't have it in him, the thing that made a good consoler.

In this case though, he spared no time gathering the small ball that Ino had curled into in his arms, resting his back against her bedpost and embracing her tightly while caressing her head gently.

Because Uzumaki Naruto was one of the people who were well acquainted to the dark and knew what it felt to be afraid of it, to be scared out of your wit about the monsters that might lurk in it.

He had been born in darkness and raised in it. But he refused to lose himself or any of his friends to it.

That night, Naruto stayed over at Ino's. And, unbeknownst to either of them, began to guide a stray soul back to shore, little at a time…

* * *

_A/N_: I have always wanted to have a story titled that and when I finally do, I am displeased with the way it comes out. I liked my initial idea which is why I took the project up despite all the piling stuff I have to do more but it just came out a bit wrong. I don't know… It came out well, just not spectacular, the way I had intended it to. And I just like interacting with my characters a bit too much and it comes off this long. 

Just so we're in the clear, Naruto doesn't like Ino _that_ way at current. He is just being an overly devoted and sympathetic friend.

_**Edit, 08/11/07:**_ I finally read the thing over, added some minor things and generally I am more confident about letting people read it now. Hope you enjoyed your read.


	2. Friends

Ino considered her fear of the dark one of her most irrational and nonsensical traits but ordinarily she is a girl abiding by the rules of cold logic and cold logic dictated that, in the cycle of time, after dark there is light, after night there is day.

And each and every night that she shuddered lightly before falling asleep in the pitch blackness of her bedroom, the only calming thought she had in mind that the sun would come up tomorrow and banish everything that happened at night, keep it strictly in the boundaries of the dark; that she'd be a different, better person when her eyes opened again next time.

And each and every day it was the same—with the horror of the night behind her, she'd spend a good minute or five assuring herself that there was nothing to be such a sissy about, that everything was alright, that it was time to rid herself of this irrational and nonsensical phobia of hers because it deterred her growth as a ninja. She would exhale slowly, shakily and once the breath was out, she truly became a better, stronger person.

Each and every day repeated the previous, a vicious circle of torrid emotions tearing at her heart every godforsaken night and overcritical mind confronting her about her weaknesses that she just couldn't seem to eliminate the way she'd been able to with every other before it.

And so, she kept living in the hell that her subconscious mind created for her, falling asleep to fear every night and waking up to her self-bashing for it every morning, over and over and over again, till the end of her time… or sanity.

For Ino had tried _everything_ to lose this unnatural fear of hers and was convinced that there was no ridding of it anymore. All she had left was to steel her mind in this prison built solely of darkness because she abided by cold logic.

And cold logic knew that where there is light, there is darkness…

But not everywhere there's darkness there is light.

And that was why at twenty-two, Yamanaka Ino was still terrified of the dark.

* * *

Per usual, Ino stirred from her sleep several times a night due to her turbulent nocturnal visions that more often than not ended up in full-blown nightmares. She had grown used to it long ago—or more likely to the thought of it because there was no way _anyone_ could get used to something unpleasant to the point of it not bothering them anymore. It's just one of those things that don't happen. 

This was why the blonde girl was surprised when her sleepy eyes were met by the cheerfulness of the bright morning light seeping through the curtains that she always had infallibly drawn wide open before her large windows. Judging by the shadows her furniture was casting on her floor, it was well into the day, eleven at best.

Her still inadequate mind became very aware of the excruciating splitting headache that had seized her in a vice-like grip. The remembrance of the shot glasses overturned on the counter for easier counting swum to the surface of her attention, mocking her for lack of anything better to do.

She didn't have much time to beat herself up over her stupidity though, as just as suddenly she realized that her pillow was warm even in places that weren't in contact with her skin—and there's no way pillows had natural warmth since they were inanimate bloodless objects and if there was no blood flowing within them, there was no warmth coming from them. You didn't need to be a genius or even a ninja to know that—it's common sense.

And yet _her_ pillow _had_ warmth. As a matter of fact, it had a pulse too—a soothing, calm heartbeat that she could hear the thumping just below where her head was resting on it.

She was a bit slow on the uptake after blowing her mind away quite successfully with a rather large two digit number of alcohol shots the previous day but Ino realized very well that something was amiss when she noticed that her '_pillow_' also had a pair of legs.

A pair of _masculine_ legs.

And a very nice pair though they were—and she had to try embarrassingly hard not to let her mind drift in a completely different direction with its start that same thought—she felt a stab of panic rise in her despite her better judgement that no matter how stoned she got there was no way she'd let in a stranger in her house or her _bed_.

Then again the alternative of having someone she _knew_ in her bed seemed equally as disturbing when she considered it…

Her mind was being really helpful to her that day because, although admittedly it was the one that had her thinking weird stuff in the first place, it spared her a minute of agonizing over the consequences of something she dare not face by reminding her with a fresh torrent of flashbacks that she hadn't slept—or at least not in _that_ sense of the word—with anyone and that Naruto had cradled her (how utterly humiliating _that_ was in broad daylight!) while she fell asleep. And then he'd gone home, some time during the night.

Again, there was no way to be sure about that last part—she was taking a wild—and logical, dare she say—guess about what could have happened after she'd gone out like a light in his arms (again, how embarrassing a thought…)—but considering that her head lay on a pillow that had warmth, a heart and legs, she began to consider it safe to say that Naruto had indeed _not_ gone home while she slept.

How infinitely nice a predicament that was, wouldn't you agree? Telling someone your greatest secret of all time—the first time that those words have _ever_ come out of your mouth in that order—and next thing you know you have to deal with the consequences of your confession first thing in the morning.

She felt that headache more acutely than ever in that exact moment.

When she tried to pry herself away from his torso she noticed the massive forearm that was still lying securely on her back, holding her in place for what seemed the entire night. She suppressed a grunt the mixture of pain from the pounding headache and overexertion with her attempts to free herself and tilted her head a little to the side so his profile would be visible to her.

The girl was slightly taken aback by the fact that he was actually awake. That fact made her turn her attention to a much more pressing issue—he was awake and _in_ her bed. With his hand still on her back. That at least called for a vocal recognition of some sort—if not anything else a shriek of surprise. Of course, seeing as Ino wasn't all that surprised or alarmed about it she had time to regard the question with a bit more of that cold-blooded logic that she so prided herself for.

And just that aforementioned logic dictated that remarking "You're still here" was not much of an attention grabber. Sure, she would say it with a hopeful and happy tone but minding the hell she'd put him through the previous day—as well as the resentful aspect that she'd used that same phrase with him—she doubted he'd pay as much attention to her _tone_ as to her actual words after waking up next to him after he'd gone out of his way to help her out. Even after she'd challenged his feelings for Sakura… and (_goodness gracious_, she just cursed all the divinities up there that it was anatomically impossible to kick herself in the ass for this second one) his masculinity.

So, instead, she chose to settle for the well-tried, old method.

"Hey," she greeted lamely with the beginnings of an uneasy smile on her surely dreadfully looking face.

She was surprised to see a startled look cross his stilled features before he turned to acknowledge her. He gave her a lazy—tired?—smile in return.

"Hey," he echoed, giving her the chance to hear his voice—a barely audible croak, scratchy with disuse. Yet another odd thing on this bizarre morning of unnatural occurrences. "Didn't notice you were up."

The blonde nodded slowly at him and felt his arm unwind from around her—and she squashed the stab of disappointment the moment it rose within her—giving her some more space to move but didn't seem in a particular hurry to remove himself from her bed anytime soon. Not that she minded, which was the most puzzling things of all.

Ino even took the time to notice how much more mature it made him look when he donned on that wistful expression of someone very deep in thought. And it took more than a little self-conviction to slow down the suddenly uneven rate of her heart—which was frankly silly of her.

Asking if he were there the whole time would've been a bit too much on the 'questioning the obvious' side that she tried not to venture into—for people who did otherwise were often thought of lesser intelligence, which she was _not_—so she settled for querying him about something a bit more subtle. Something she had mixed feelings debating with herself.

"Have you had any sleep at all?" It came out a bit more incredulous of a tone than she'd aimed for. For a while, Naruto just kept staring off into space, as if he didn't hear her question or deemed it unworthy of his acknowledgement.

"You said you were afraid of the dark so I stayed up and made sure there was nothing in here for you to be afraid of." Ah, leave it to Naruto to say the sweetest thing when you're just about to jump down his neck for his condescending act.

"Oh…" Squashing away the utterly bewildered note in her voice proved to be quite a feat but she considered she did well with it when she continued (equally as lamely as she had all morning, if she may say so herself), "Well… Thanks then, I guess."

She noted to herself that forcing smiles when they aren't even noticed or she's not even in the mood for one was definitely a _bad idea_. Her face felt like she'd scrunched it up for a painful grimace rather than a reassuring, if a little crooked, smile.

Naruto nodded thoughtfully, still looking dazedly into nothing in particular and she couldn't help but stare this time. Because there was something _very_ different about the guy, bathed in the bright morning light that couldn't even rival his internal radiance which, by the way, was on even higher top notch than it was last night when he'd… err… _helped_ her overcome herself. There was something just… _changed_, something that made him appear that much more… a man rather than a ditzy boy but she couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was.

When her eyes wandered to the nightstand by her bedpost and she turned her gaze back on him, she knew.

At some point in time he'd taken off his Konoha forehead protector. And, somehow, without it he looked so much better on so many levels that she couldn't even begin to grasp why it was that way. Sure, with the thing on, he was so uniquely Naruto that it could make you go blind just looking at him—showing off that Will of Fire that was said all Konoha nins possessed, wearing his dreams wrapped around his forehead for the world to see, to know that he would one day protect the whole village and would even lay down his life for them should the need arise.

Without it, he wasn't blabbering-nonsense-about-becoming-Hokage-one-day Naruto. Without it, he was someone she'd never laid eyes on before—because she really hadn't seen him without it.

Somehow, without the forehead protector, it seemed that he could look at the world a bit more realistically; like he could look at everything without his rose-coloured goggles. His eyes were dimmer, more unfocused, as if trying to grasp the inadvertent hope that he usually possessed and failing at it, because he could see, _actually see_, the world around him, the world he lived in.

And with it came a new light from him. Certainly, not as blindingly bright as the usual one and at the same time so much more soothing, so much calming exactly because of its, _his_, more reserved behaviour, because of its slight subtleness that coaxed one into a sense of utter tranquility.

She felt idiotic for thinking such things just for the lack of one metal-plated bandana around a guy's head but it was the only thing she could think of to justify her sudden change of opinion on the person who she'd previously envisioned as 'the blond abomination' and 'that disastrous Hokage-wannabe'.

Besides, he looked really deep in thought if not serene sitting there with his eyes so unfocused like that.

She bit on her lower lip hard to derail her train of thought from the unhealthy direction it was heading in before it crashed on its own. Then the previous short-lived conversation finally sank in and she looked puzzled at her friend.

"So… you sat here… all night long… immersed in thought like this?" She could barely fit the idea in her mind—what was left for actually believing someone she barely knew would do something like that just for her sake?

He chuckled lightly—what a rich sound that was when his voice wasn't its usual shrill pitch—at that and put his arms behind his neck. And it was really hard _not_ to notice that he'd lost the shirt he'd had on last night when his well-toned muscled arms seemed to stare right back at her, though in a much more show-off-like style.

"Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up."

Feeling more and more ridiculous—not to mention humiliated at the thoughts that ran through her head—Ino grabbed at the first topic that she could think of to take her mind off the track it wouldn't stop being on. And she was bit too acutely aware of the closeness of their lower halves for comfort…

"What were you thinking of for such a long time?"

"Lots of stuff," he said in a tone that clearly conveyed that he would not appreciate being interrogated any further about it. Ino knew well that kind of tone because most of her subjects during her training sessions with Ibiki-senpai used it—unsuccessfully—on her. But this was Naruto—a completely new and unsuspectingly existing one—and she decided to just let it go this time.

Even if she hadn't, the alarm clock on her nightstand began shrieking in that godforsaken deafening way it usually did, gaining their attention immediately. The blonde girl did them both a favor by slamming her hand on it to prevent it from waking the entire block.

"Well," He sighed as he threw his feet over the edge of the bed, disentangling himself from her—much to her chagrin although she'd hotly deny it if asked, "I think that would be my cue to leave."

She kind of hoped he would forget it there—so she'd be able to get rid of it because of the unfairness it did to his unruly blond locks that the world preferred unhindered—but the headband was the first thing he took when he got up, after which he collected his shirt and swiftly put it on.

"I'll let you take care of that headache and just tell me if you need me to make up an excuse to Ibiki-san or Tsunade-baba so you can… you know, recuperate for one day, steer clear of the loudly speaking people." He was by the door of her bedroom faster than she would've liked him to but she didn't let any of her feelings show on her face save for one as she smiled gratefully.

"Thanks, Naruto." He looked at her with a grin on his face as he made to tie the forehead protector around his head. "For being such a great friend when I was anything but. It means a lot to me." She blinked a few times embarrassedly—which he noted distinctly—before leaning in conspiratorially. "And I'd be forever more thankful to you if you kept what I told you last night to yourself." Her voice lowered to a mere whisper and she cringed slightly as she said, "It's not exactly bragging material."

At that it seemed all his bodily processes halted and changed course a bit and that foreign look took over his features once more. His hands dropped to his sides again, one firmly grasping the metal plate of his protector. He was staring at the wall in front of him with a wistful expression again before he nodded slowly.

"Yeah… I know. I can keep a secret for you." The grin on his face at that moment when he turned to her appeared more sincere than all the other ones she'd ever seen him give. It made her feel somehow lighter and oddly ill at ease in the abdominal area to look at. "I'll give you a heads up as your senior in these matters, Ino-chan. The demons of the night aren't as scary as the darkness makes them seem. They only come out after dark because they can only exist within it. In the daytime you see their real faces and they're not as frightening anymore—either real or imaginary."

He turned to leave again but stopped once more on the threshold, biting on his lips in what looked like an attempt to conceal a smile.

"And even the real _demons_ aren't always as mortifying and untouchable as the legends make them. So you should keep in mind that there was a great deal of exaggeration of their powers in the darkness when the stories were written as well." He winked at her and exited her apartment, letting her decipher what exactly he'd just tried to tell her.

But at any rate she was glad that he was gone. She would have been horrified to explain the blush that contrasted so vividly with her pale facial features.

Especially when she had only a (too) vague idea why the blush was…

* * *

The door to the eerily quiet room opened. 

A light suddenly bathed all its bitingly white appliances.

A small, bare foot with skin of a tone so like the rest of the whiteness in the premise stepped in, onto the tiled floor with an uncertain step.

A shiver ran up the slender leg as the mind-numbing cold of the tile ensnared the warmth of the foot, instantly robbing it of its heat.

Instead of retreating at the onslaught of an unpleasant sensation, the slim frame of a naked girl clutching a towel to her front made her way inside the bathroom, closing the door behind her, reveling at the feeling of the freezing sensation seeping into her from her feet to her entire body.

She made her way to the shower stall, her feet pattering against the tiles along the way.

A mane of pure platinum was released from its strict prison with a small hair band coming off, which was temporarily air borne until it landed on the shelf in front of a large mirror.

The beautiful locks spilled around her like liquid silk, trying to hide her from herself, to mask her shame at the thoughts that incessantly ran through her head, choking the very essence of her.

The pretty haired head hung low against the collarbone of the individual, as if the telephone shower was her severest judge and she was tongue-tied, with nothing to say in her defense.

There was only resounding silence in the room of pure whiteness when a slender, well-toned arm struck out from the sea of platinum to rest the weight of the body against a wall when the legs alone didn't suffice.

For a while, all the cornflower pupilless blue eyes did was stare numbly at the shower's spout, trying to convince their owner out of the incredulity of her thoughts because they were simply preposterous. Things like _that _did not happen overnight.

People did not _change_ overnight and neither did their opinions of one another.

A second slim hand reached out and turned the water on, adjusting the temperature until it was perfect to put the head with the glorious blonde main under it.

In a matter of seconds, the beautiful platinum locks were soaked, shining with a new brilliance with the infusion of the water in them.

She was a creature of the dark, a child of the night in the worst possible meaning and it was moments like these when she succumbed to it that made it obvious.

For her thoughts and musings were blacker than tar, just like her heart was, how it had always been.

Unfeeling, never beating.

She was a creature ugly at heart, with a tiny, despicable soul; one who emanated only loathe and darkness with its lurid aura.

People like her did _not_ fall for creatures of the light, the bright and cheerful ones, the ones who seem more radiant than the clearest day, overnight.

_Her_ opinions did _not_ change overnight.

She was a person of principles.

What would that say about her principles if they were superficial enough to be changed by just one evening of good behaviour on someone's part?

Gods, she was _pathetic_.

Was that why people so easily came to hate each other and start wars, killing hundreds of innocents? Because they could love equally as quickly, equally as shallowly?

How revolting a thought…

She was _not_ in love.

She was just vulnerable. And alone. And downright _pitiful_.

A lost cause.

The type that he loved to busy himself with.

And that was _exactly_ why he had cared.

Because she was a lost cause.

Why did it have to be the dead-last who she took a sudden strange fancy in? Why couldn't it have been someone cool and mature and… more _her type_… like Shikamaru? Or even Neji?

She was so distraught that she wasn't even sure what 'her type' was anymore.

Because if she followed that train of thought, she'd arrive back at her first 'love'. And thus she'd be able to conclude that 'her type' would be people that made her shiver with fear at night at the sheer memory of them and made her blood curdle in her veins when she encountered them.

And that was even _more_ than pathetic, though no human vocabulary had a word strong enough to describe it.

Lord, she'd fallen _so low_ she was just a speck from the spot everyone else was.

She was needy and Naruto had been her friend in need. And her insecure weakened heart had latched onto him like a drowning man to a lifeline.

But she knew better than to believe in that feeling. It was just as imaginary as the haunting crimson seas with jet black windmills in her mind's eye.

And it would be gone just as quickly, with the break of dawn, as all other imaginary things were, she decided as she began to bathe herself.

Because people's opinions of others did not change overnight; because people did not change _that_ easily.

Because you can't fall in love so quickly, for such superficial and just _stupid_, nonsensical, reasons.

For that would mean that people can grow to hate one another equally as strongly for just the same meager reasons.

And that was just such a soul-scaring notion she refused to entertain it even for a second…

* * *

The next time Ino saw Naruto it was well over a few days since the whole… pub episode and she'd had enough time to calm down. And persuade herself out of her crush on the loud fellow blond or, rather, that there was never a crush to talk herself out of in the first place. And that was just so easy to believe since she'd never really cared too much for the guy before. 

She was rifling through papers with a disgruntled look on her face, sitting on a bench in front of the Hokage tower on a sunny day when a shadow fell over her documents. With a fine brow quirked slightly in annoyance, she'd lifted her eyes up from the large hands jammed in the loose—atrociously orange—pants up to the grinning, slightly bent over her frame of Uzumaki Naruto.

She gave him a sardonic smile.

"Hello there, boulder boy," she greeted sourly when he didn't get the point of the look she was giving him. "Not that I mind too much you getting in the way of my hopelessly important work but would you mind moving? I really should finish this soon or Hokage-sama might feel the need to vent her frustrations with me on my body with her fists and _you_ should know that this kind of thing never ends well."

Naruto laughed full-heartily at that and she did her best to ignore him despite the fact he was yet to do as she'd asked. Otherwise thoughts she'd denied so well over the past few days could have resurfaced.

"She sure can punch hard, huh? Don't worry though—if it's your first offence, I'm sure she'll go easy with the amount of chakra she channels to her fist." He chuckled some more when he sat right next to her, their sides only an inch or two apart.

Ino rolled her eyes at his words—because admit it or not, she was trying to keep her attention strictly and _only_ at that—him talking.

"Yeah, well, _my_ head isn't as thick as yours is so I'd rather _not_ try her patience." The pen in her dainty fingers scribbled her curvy signature on several places while she was talking to him.

"I would say that is rather debatable." The look she gave him only made him laugh which was definitely not the effect she was striving for. "Sorry, sorry!" He apologized hastily, knowing better than to try a female's temper—he'd been on the receiving end of far too many way too powerful punches from girls that look petite and delicate (which only went to prove that looks—_especially regarding kunoichi­_—can be (_very_) deceiving) to not develop _some_ sense of self-defense though he was still greatly lacking in that aspect.

He leaned back on the bench, draping his chiseled arms over the back of it for better relaxation. Ino kept ignoring him.

"So, what have you been up to lately? Haven't seen you around much…"

She was really just a beginner at caring enough to even _try_ to read people but she was quite certain that beneath that casual tone he was harboring a bit of worry over her well-being.

She didn't know what to make of it so she just shunned the thought from her mind completely. And switched back to ignoring everything and everyone.

For a moment she almost, ironically, could understand why Sasuke had liked it so much—the blissful oblivion of not giving a damn about anything.

Needless to say, she mentally smacked herself out of the thought the very second she conceived it.

"Oh, you know how it goes—same shit, different day." He began to nod in affirmation when her head bolted up slightly from being hunched over the documentation she was dealing with. "Although I _did_ decide to make a hobby out of that night. Get hammered like hell, wake up next to a different person every morning after a night of wild experiences—that kind of stuff."

He laughed again and she assured herself that it was not because of it that she'd said that kind of obvious lie. His face fell soon though, mirth replaced so quickly by dread that it was quite amusing.

"That _was_ a joke, right?" He asked her in all seriousness and she couldn't help but chortle a bit at his gullibility.

"Of _course_ it was a joke." They shared a chuckle before Ino cocked an eye brow at him. "Jeesh, what kind of girl do you take me for anyway?"

"Well, what kind of girl are you trying to make yourself out to be?" he parried, a smug look on his face.

It took Ino some time to convince herself she was _not_ flirting with Uzumaki freaking Naruto.

There was a tranquil silence broken only by the throng of people all around them, going to and fro the Hokage tower and down the narrow streets of Konoha, the occasional turning of a page and scribble of the pen in her hand.

"So, really, how are you holding up? Things looking up at length?" he tried again for a conversation and she decided to dignify this attempt with stopping her constant autographing this page and that.

She regarded his question earnestly for a short moment that caught his complete and undivided attention once more. He was looking expectantly at her profile when she deduced,

"Well, if I have to be frank—" she began and was partially annoyed when he picked that exact spot to raise an open palm in her face to stop her talking. She did _not _appreciate much being interrupted after being asked a question that expected an answer.

"Should I steel myself for any snarky remarks or sarcasm now that you're going to be _frank_?"

She stared at his genuine expression with her mouth agape. When she seemed to come out of her stasis she let out an indignant snort, putting her pen down on her papers. Naruto smirked at her, daring her to say anything to that but, considering her attitude towards him, there was really nothing she could really rebuke him with that would be even remotely true.

So she rolled her eyes in mild annoyance and crossed her arms over her ample chest.

"O—kay, so I wasn't the nicest person ever but there's no need to rub it in my face, you know—"

"Hey, it was just a question!" He interjected with what he probably dubbed his 'charming' smile. (Or was that _her_ dubbing it 'his charming smile'? Now that's some food for thought…) His arms went up in a defensive manner. "Better prepare myself than be caught off-guard, y'know."

"No, no snarky remarks or sarcastic comments." She seemed to rethink that for a bit before she corrected herself, "Or at least none meant for you."

"_That_ I can live with." They cackled again before continuing.

"Things have been awful since mom and dad… you know." Her voice trailed off and her spirits visibly dampened so even if he _didn't_ know, he would've found out at that exact moment. He nodded slowly, adopting a deadpan expression of his own. "But, besides the emotional background, everything's… turning out pretty well. I'm handing over daddy's last mission reports that he'd forgotten to deal with, getting things for the funeral arranged and trying to get back on track with work." Her eyes unfocused and he was sure she was no longer staring at the paper sheets in her hands but at the times passed.

Naruto expelled a sigh. He really wasn't made out for this kind of heavy atmosphere. It stifled the very thing that was uniquely him. So he did the one thing that he was very good at in these situations.

"Sounds like life's been pretty boring for you."

Change the subject to something completely unrelated to what he had been talked to about.

Ino looked skeptically at him.

"Well, _yeah_, it's not as if I'm going to throw a party because my parents _died_," she almost hissed out venomously at him, her voice thick with malice. The blonde boy put up a pacifying palm again.

"No, no, that just didn't come out right. What I meant is that you need a change of pace."

This time the light haired girl regarded him with mildly intrigued dubiousness. Noticing her sudden attentiveness, her companion went on to pursue his idea more thoroughly.

"What do you say we go grab some lunch? I'm starving and I'm sure that you could use some reinforcement to deal with that huge stack of tedious paperwork." He grinned hopefully at her.

Just a few weeks ago, she might have brushed off an offer like that the second he decided to proposition her. But so much had changed in that little time that it was barely fathomable. If anything else, she truly regarded the thought with some degree of seriousness.

Sure, she hated ramen and it was most certainly what he had in mind to take her to (since it was probably the sole thing he lived on) but the mere fact that he'd stick around and shed some of that encompassing brightness of his that had one hopelessly dark night given her comfort and the best—nightmare-less too—sleep for the first time in a long while made her reconsider her refusal.

Folding the documents neatly, she looked up at his grinning mug with a smile on her own.

"Lunch sounds acceptable." Naruto gave her a victory sign with his right hand and led the way to the place he had in mind.

But before he could say anything, she added,

"As long as it's not miso ramen, instant ramen or _anything_ resembling whatever ramen-like."

Her blonde fellow looked as though he had been lethally struck with a kunai in a vital area.

"You don't like ramen?" She feigned thinking over his query.

"No, it's not that I don't _like_ ramen…" His features relaxed into a blissful relief once more. "…I rather _hate_ it."

And he tripped over his own feet, falling flat on his face in the middle of the completely even, obstacle-less street.

* * *

"How can you _hate_ ramen? Ramen is the best food in the entire world!" 

An azure pair of eyes rolling in irritation. "Okay, so for _me_, it isn't. What can't you accept about that? Why can't you make your peace with the fact that I'm not a fan of your food?"

An indignant, sharp intake of breath. "_Because_…" Gears of a slow brain turning frantically for a little while, mouth flapping open and closed in a perfect imitation of a gold fish. "There's no _way_ you can't like ramen once you know how much fun it can be!"

A disbelieving snort. "Food isn't _supposed_ to be fun, you goof. It's supposed to be nutritious and healthy and low on calories so it doesn't ruin your figure."

"Personally, I think that you've become so much of only skin and bones that _nothing_ can ruin your so-called 'figure'."

A pointed glare. "Here's a tip from me—you're not going to cajole me into eating your dish from hell by _insulting_ me."

A cerulean pair of eyes rolling in dejection. "Just give me _one_ try, okay? You'll see that you'll _love_ ramen!"

A sigh of resignation. "Fine. I'd like to see you try to change my mind about it."

* * *

An hour or so later and the complete demonstration of the 'Twenty-Four Fun Uses Of Ramen' behind her back, Ino could safely say that she wasn't so averse to the dish anymore.

* * *

A couple of weeks so and the occasional lunch or dinner at the Ichiraku's brought Ino a bit closer to understanding what made Naruto tick (especially when it came to his food). The meetings began with remotely awkward at first, traversed through comfortable small talk to finally arrive at cozy confabulation. The girl could now safely say that she was one of Uzumaki Naruto's closest circle of friends and she found herself quite enjoying that position. 

She also no longer really hated ramen, though she very, very rarely indulged in it herself. Yes, she could definitely do without ramen but didn't resent it _that_ much anymore.

Because ramen was really fun.

Though what made it fun was the boy who could make her laugh even though her parents had recently passed on.

She had no doubt in her mind she could do without him—she was completely self-sufficient. Always had been, always would be.

She could _definitely_ do without him.

She just didn't want to anymore.

For Ino had found a single small candle whose light even all the darkness in the world couldn't extinguish.

* * *

About three months after the blossoming of the blonds' unforeseen friendship, Naruto was dazedly walking the streets of Konoha, mind wandering about when would be the best time to go off on a lunch break because his genin team was being quite a handful that day. He'd barely shaken them off a few minutes ago under the pretext that he had to talk something over with Tsunade-baba, leaving them to hone their shuriken throwing skills on their own. 

He had a feeling he'd have a lot of helping to do once he came back to see the results.

In fact, the youth was so deep in thought that he narrowly missed running into a rather large bunch of walking bouquets.

He started having doubts about them, though, when they mumbled a hasty apology in a small as tall as an ant voice and started stumbling forward and backward, nearly losing their balance.

"Ino-chan?" he guessed tentatively when he caught a glimpse of pencil-straight platinum hair sticking out of a strikingly neat high ponytail.

The bunch of bouquets froze in place and there was some general wrapping paper ruffling before a pretty head stuck out from between them to greet him.

"Oh, Naruto, hi! If I knew it was _you_ I ran into, I would've been more polite." She gave a half-hearted laugh and hoisted the flowers in a bit more comfortable position to hold while talking to someone.

The boy quickly scrambled to aid her in the dire flower situation she seemed to be having.

"Ah, now _that's_ a load off my hands… literally. Thanks!" She said once they delivered most of the bouquets to their destinations safe and sound.

"So you've decided to take up the family business?" He dramatically dabbed his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt.

"More or less." She watched from the window her latest customer—a pretty middle-aged gentle-looking woman—tend to the flowers as though they were fragile. It brought a small smile to her pinkish lips. "I felt like I'd be letting my folks down if I didn't. Besides, it's a great getaway every now and then—the flower field—and the best retirement plan a kunoichi could ever wish for."

Naruto was looking at her with a bemused expression on his face.

"Retirement?" he reiterated, making her turn in her puzzlement to size him up too.

"Yeah, _retirement_," she emphasized, as if it was a brand new word to his vocabulary. "Some of us are thinking in perspective here."

"Yeah, quite a perspective there—forty years into the future is _indeed_ quite perspectively, I have to agree." And that comment earned him a not-light-enough-to-be-just-playful punch on the shoulder.

"Well, that is in case I _make_ it to retirement." Her demeanor suddenly became grim. "A lot of ninjas never do." And he had a very clear idea whom she was envisioning when she said that.

"True, many don't, it's part of being a ninja after all. But I think you're going to be one of the few who will make it to old age." He smirked mischievously when he saw an opportunity to turn that frown of hers upside down at the slight twitch in the corner of her mouth at his previous statement. "In fact, I think that you're going to live for so long that about the time your number comes up, you'll be all old and wrinkly," Ino smacked his arm again at that but her attempts to submerge the grin were becoming poorer and poorer, "and cranky and you're going to throw stuff with shuriken hidden in them at little genin kids who dare trespass in your personal garden in the back of your filthy rich husband's mansion."

"You, for one, seem to have a very clear image of my future, eh?" She gave him an amused smirk while unlocking the front door to the Yamanaka flower shop.

Naruto thumped a fist to his chest smugly.

"Of course! In my spare time, when I take a small breather from being a walking legend," Ino laughed aloud at that, "I develop my other great talent—being a psychic!" He was positively beaming when he crossed his arms over his broad chest.

She just felt compelled to get him off his high horse.

"Are you sure that you're not just psychotic?"

He mocked an injured look.

"Is it not enough that I give you insights on your bright, bright future for free but you also _insult_ me? How _horribly_ ungrateful of you!" He put the back of his palm to his forehead for additional drama. Ino rolled her eyes from him.

"Don't you think it's getting old?" At her words his hand immediately dropped to his side and he resumed a normal pose.

"Yeah, I was thinking of quitting soon—it really _was_ getting old." He watched her as she rearranged the flowers in a vase by the counter while shaking her head in disbelief at the guy's behaviour. "So, umm… if there's anything else I can help you with, what with you getting the shop running again and all… Don't hesitate to tell me, anytime, alright?"

The blonde gave him an appreciative smile.

"Thanks, Naruto. I will if I have trouble with something."

"Anytime's fine."

"I know," she said more forcefully. "You should get back to your team—I'm sure they've started fussing about now."

He cursed softly while checking the ornamented clock on the wall of the shop.

"Man, I can't believe I skipped lunch and it's already this late." He heaved a great sigh. "You're right; I should get back to them before they start causing trouble for Neji's kids or Chouji's cell. I'll see you around, okay?" She nodded her affirmation and turned back to her flowers. "Anytime you need help, don't hesitate to call, right?"

"I know, I know, go already!" She all but chased him out.

"Alright, alright, I'm going already, jeez; no need to get testy."

The door to the shop clicked shut and quiet reigned over the place.

But Ino knew better than to enjoy the tranquility too much because just a minute later the door opened again and a painfully familiar blonde head poked in.

"Do you by chance have any instant ramen lying around? I'm really starving to death here and kind'a in a hurry…"

She sent him off a second time, empty-handed (and grumbling incessantly) but for some reason she just couldn't stop grinning like an imbecile.

She felt like nothing could make the sun set upon her clear cloudless day.

* * *

As a person abiding by the laws of logic Ino should've seen it coming, should've _known_ it would come because there was never a day without night, a sunrise without a sunset, even in metaphors. 

As a creature of the darkness, surrounded by it, writhing in it, she should've known that it wouldn't let her bask in the light of day for long.

The eclipse of her field day came in the form of Sakura returning from a long mission to Sunagakure just in time for her birthday.

The first day of her return was the day just before the (wretched) holiday of hers and, unsurprisingly, Naruto was her most fretful customer that day.

"Ino-chan, I really, _really_ need your help because I want to make this day special for Sakura-chan, one she'll never forget." Ino's cornflower blue eyes rolled in annoyance at that.

"And how do I fit in that?"

"You're a girl…" the clumsy blond began, making his friend roll her eyes some more, this time with rather deeply pronounced irritation.

"Oh, _well spotted_," she spat back, disappearing somewhere in the back of the store in an attempt to storm off for effect.

"No, I meant that you _know_ what a girl wants to make her special day most special, starting from the kind of bouquet I should give her to the kind of dinner I should take her to." He whined and prostrated himself on the counter dejectedly, his arms hanging a little off the side of it. "Come on, Ino-chan—you're her best friend and she's brushed me off so many times already… I want to make it impossible for her to do it this time because it really means a lot to me to spend this day with her…"

Reclining against a shelf, Ino chewed on the inside of her cheek debating whether or not to commit the equivalent of emotional suicide by helping her potential crush-or-something-of-the-sort person to finally get through to the one true love of his life. She grimaced as though she was in great pain and her fingers' grip on her arms grew a little firmer.

"Please, Ino… You're the only person who can help me, the only one I would want to help me… If even just a tiny bit, I'll be eternally grateful to you…"

He was positively pathetic, lying on that counter like that and she couldn't help but pity him. She'd really become his friend these last few months and he'd become a great part of her life. And somehow she just didn't want to share him with Sakura, even though he'd never see her the way he saw the pink monster and she knew it.

"I know you have no use of helping me out but I'll think a way to make it up to you… Just give me a little push in the right direction here; I'm really terrible at this dating thing…"

The blonde flower shop owner bristled visibly. How could he even _think_ that she had only her own benefit in mind when helping him out? Sure, they got off on the wrong foot in the beginning but he should know better than to doubt her at that point of their friendship!

She stormed out from her hiding place, glaring heatedly at the pathetic puddle with a tuft of unruly blond hair atop of it that was once a perky Hokage-wannabe. She slammed her open palm on the counter right next to the boy's nose startling him out of his pitiful reverie.

"You want my help? Fine, I'll help you but just with the bouquet—" He opened his mouth to start raining his thanks on her but she put up a hand and an immediate stop to whatever he intended to say. "And only under the condition that you never, _ever_ think of me as someone who looks for personal benefit in helping out a friend in need. You should _know_ I am _not_ that kind of person, Naruto."

Her voice was angry and imperious but she couldn't stifle the welling satisfaction when he nodded vigorously.

"I know you're not, it's just that." His shoulders sagged. "God, I'm just so pathetic." He draped himself over the counter again.

Ino sniffed snobbishly and patted his shoulder condescendingly.

"That's okay—I knew you were all along but I'm still here with you, playing the 'good friend' part." He gave her a sardonic smirk that she acknowledged with a smug one of her own. "So," she began in a rather business-like tone; "a birthday bouquet for our favourite Billboard Brow…"

The girl started to circle suspiciously around some vases with flowers. Naruto just watched her reverently and waited patiently for her verdict.

"I think a gardenia should figure in there somewhere, but should it be the highlight of the ensemble…" she pondered to herself, a thoughtful index finger tip on her lower lip. Naruto simply followed her bee-line trek around the flower shop with a curious gaze. "What exactly are we trying to say here? I need to know so I can focus on that."

Her inquiring gaze at him seemed to shake him out of his induced trance.

"Umm…" He cleared his throat loudly as if to shrug off the last of his pitiful stupor. "Alright, well, let's see now…"

Ino grimaced, to herself, guessing from his stalling that it was going to be a long day for her but she'd already made a promise to him and knew she had to stick with it.

And Ino proved to be right because, from there, all hell broke loose.

* * *

On the twenty-eighth of March, Naruto had the most gorgeous and breathtaking bouquet for a certain pink-haired girl and a little better knowledge of the quirks of her likings than he had the week before. He got the date he had wanted for such a long time and was able to truly make this day special for the one most special girl in his life. 

Ino watched from afar as her friend took out her once rival for what she was certain would be the girl's most wonderful and thoughtful date in her life (with due thanks to a certain blonde clerk) and smiled bitterly to herself before getting back to her endless work in the shop.

That night, Naruto felt the happiest man on earth as he lay content on his back in his bed, to have such wonderful friends and finally (some of the) attention of his life-long crush.

And Ino?

That night, Ino dreamt of bloodline limited crimson orbs and the chirping of a thousand deadly birds.

* * *

"Hey there, suave one," she greeted playfully—not at all how she felt like after a night of barely any sleep at all and horribly nightmare infested—when he swung about her in the Hokage tower the next day. "How'd your dream-date go?" 

She'd been his friend for a few months now so she had learnt to expect the unexpected from his quixotic nature so she wasn't as taken aback when he seized her in a tight bear hug and squeezed her tight and just barely not enough to make some of her bones crack under the pressure.

"It was perfect, Ino-chan! Thank you a million times over! I made use of all the things you told me she liked and I think I'm _finally_ having some progress."

Ino ignored the emotion that reared its ugly head at his statement and smiled brilliantly at him as though she didn't feel like she was losing her closest friend.

"Well, it was only natural that my timely and ingenious input would've had you win over some points." She smirked self-satisfyingly and crossed her arms smugly over her chest.

"You were my saviour, my guardian angel! Thank you _so_ much! I'm so happy I feel like I could kiss you all over!"

"Whoa there, shouldn't you be saving your kisses for your girlfriend now?" It was all she could do to keep her voice friendly and casual.

Naruto gave a deep sigh at that, his face falling and she reprimanded herself mentally for the sudden well of hope in her at his dejected look. Because that was anything but friendly of her and she was _supposed _to be his friend.

"We're not actually together right now but I just _know_ I'm making progress… and it will be some time before she lets me kiss her anywhere other than the cheek…" Just as abruptly his mood brightened and his face lit up with exhilaration once again. "But my persistence has paid off so far so I'm going to keep it up and I'm sure that some of these days I'll reach my goal. I believe in that!"

Ino sighed to herself and turned her gaze away from him.

Because she believed that too…

* * *

In recollection, she wouldn't have probably been able to pinpoint exactly when her nightmares' hold on her had loosened enough for her to just forget about them and she would never make the connection between the night they started haunting her again and the events of the day leading to them. 

All she knew is that she barely had any rest after the end of March and she had the distinct feeling that there was only impenetrable darkness inside her head, the candle which had lighted her way no longer within her grasp.

If asked, she would be certain that her horrid nightly visions were not her way of drowning her consciousness so she would not think of her closest friends' involvement with each other.

No. It was rather her way of punishing herself for ever believing she would be able to crawl out of the accursed pit her fear of the dark had dug out for her soul to rot in.

Because all hope and blind belief could ever get you is disappointment.

And she really should've known better.

It was her field after all—simple logic.

* * *

"Sakura-chan, doesn't Ino seem constantly tired to you lately?" asked Naruto over a cup of coffee after an all-nighter mission with his medic teammate while they sat in a cafeteria just outside Konoha after the successful completion of their job. 

The addressed girl looked oddly at him.

"I suppose…" She ventured uncertainly, eye brow quirking slightly. "What brought you to that kind of deep observation?" She took a sip of her hot chocolate.

"I dun'no… She just seems kind of… _off_ lately, I guess is all." He slurped his hot drink.

"Ino's a big girl, Naruto, and she can take care of herself." The pink-haired apprentice of the Hokage crossed her legs and leaned back on her chair with an air of finality. "And I'm sure if there's a problem she needs help with solving, she'll tell me right away. We may have had a bit of falling out back in the day but we're best buddies now. Trust me, she's fine."

She took another dainty taste of her drink and he had to admit, her conviction in her own words lulled him in a false sense of security of his own. Even though a more profound part of him knew better than to be led on by groundless reasoning.

"How are things with the new apartment coming along?" She opted for a change in subject because she hadn't been Naruto's teammate during all these years without learning a thing or two about his worrywart nature.

Along with how single-tracked his mind was.

"Everything's great—all that's left to do is move my stuff in."

"That's great, congratulations!" She patted his shoulder in a friendly manner. "Now you can have all the space you could ever wish for!"

"Yeah, well, obviously constantly putting your neck on the line for your village in missions no one else wants to take _does_ have its benefits. Especially financial." They chuckled a bit before lapsing into comfortable silence. "So, are you sure you don't want to share the abode? There's a whole bedroom you can have to yourself and you'll feel more comfortable at night knowing you have the best bodyguard you can wish for sleeping just in the next room…"

He wiggled his eye brows suggestively and she shook her head in disbelief, smiling a bit as she punched him playfully on the arm.

"I don't think so, Naruto but I'm flattered for the invitation." He lifted his arms up in defeat.

"Hey, it was worth the try." He sighed and just stared for a while. "Damn, now I'll have no one to split the rent with."

They submerged themselves in petty small talk again but the little monster called worry kept gnawing at the back of Naruto's mind.

* * *

As we've already mentioned before, the Hokage tower was one of the busiest places in Konoha. People came and went from it at all times of day, looking harried, joyous or just plain exhausted from the completion of a recent mission when they did. 

The key moment in coming and going though was that you actually had to be _inside_ the Tower at some point in time.

Something someone much expected was anything but.

"Where, the _hell_, is she?" The blonde big-chested Hokage fumed, slamming her sake bottle angrily on her desk with so much force that the liquid it contained almost sloshed all out.

"Please, calm down, Tsunade-sama—it's really bad for your health to—" Her fretful assistant's worried chatter was cut short by her raucous superior.

"No, Shizune—what's _really_ bad for my health is for my people not to arrive on time when I have practically the whole "Root" breathing down my neck." She grunted in displeasure and crossed her arms over her bosom—what a feat _that_ must have been—with her forefinger tapping an angry staccato rhythm against her pale much-too-smooth-for-a-sixty-year-old-woman skin. "Honestly; is that really the girl Ibiki claims could some day surpass him? Why doesn't she start by surpassing him in punctuality, huh? Is that really _so much_ to ask for around here?"

At the bemused look on Naruto's face—the blonde had peculiarly stayed completely quiet during Tsunade's outburst—Shizune leaned closer to him for a brief whispered explanation.

"She had an important meeting with Kakashi-san two hours ago. He is yet to show up."

Naruto's cerulean orbs brightened with understanding at that little piece of information and he gave the brunette a slow nod in acknowledgement of her predicament.

Before any more tantrums could be thrown, tempers flared and nerve cells irrevocably annihilated, the door to the office creaked open slightly, wide enough for a platinum blonde head to poke inside. As if caught red-handed in the middle of doing something illicit, once spotted by her fellow blonde superior—who looked very much like she was on a rampage from where the newcomer was standing—Ino cringed lightly and let herself in, closing the door behind herself.

Naruto took the chance to check her over for injuries or trace of anything that he should worry about and was surprised to find none. Even her expression looked completely composed—save for the fact that guilt and embarrassment were emanating from her in thick waves. And it was exactly that impeccability of appearance that begot his suspicion at once.

Who arrived more than an hour late for one of the most important missions to Konoha for the year after being explicitly told to be punctual and looked like they hadn't had a good reason for being late? _Except_ Kakashi—he didn't count; his trespassed into the realm of chronic disease.

"I'm horribly sorry for the lateness of my arrival, Tsunade-sama." The young woman bowed deeply and hung her head low in shame when she stood upright again. "I will take any punishment you deem worthy. I am deeply, deeply sorry."

Needless to say, no valid reason for her insubordination figured along that sentence.

The Hokage's hazel eyes narrowed to malicious slits and the room suddenly became heavy with killer intent.

For the first time in history, Naruto actually wished _he_ had been the one to stir the sennin's volatile temper.

* * *

After getting severely yelled at, admonished, threatened and intimidated in all ways known and not to human kind, Ino was sent along with her friend an hour and a half late for their hopelessly important mission. 

Said concerned friend had had his easily stirred anxiety for the well-fare of his closest ones severely shaken awake by the kunoichi's out of characteristically late arrival and had thus taken it upon himself to observe her conduct all throughout their mission.

If she hadn't revealed to him a few short months ago the most unexpected secret phobia of hers that she had never even shown the tiniest hint of having, he might have been convinced by her flawlessly normal performance during the execution of their job and perfectly safe return. He wouldn't be so easily swung this time though.

So, grappling for a prolongation of his observation on her, he called on their tradition of having some tea or a quick meal after a job well done.

Predictably, she gave him no need for concern and, although he was still a bit wary, he wrote it off as paranoia and dropped the tension, opting instead for an enjoyable meal with his (dare he say, best) friend.

* * *

He was on his way to Tsunade-baa-chan's office to tell her he'd just moved in all of his things into his new abode and offer her an excuse to ditch work for an hour or two to give her the tour when he heard a couple of Ino's colleagues conversing in nervous tones. 

"She's been late the past week a bit but today's got to be worst day off—she never even showed!" One shook his head with care.

"That doesn't sound anything like Ino-senpai," agreed the other, arms crossing over his chest, his gaze equally as heavy with worry for his senior.

He didn't even spare a second to doubt his decision—he went straight for her flat to check on her.

Jeez… Did that girl have any idea how much she was making all her coworkers fret over her?

Did she even have an _inkling_ of how much she was making _him_ worry over her lately?

It had to stop, one way or another. There _had_ to be a way to keep an eye on her, but as subtly and stealthily as he could manage. Spying and following her around had proved once (…don't ask…) not to be an option so it was back to the drawing board with him. There _had_ to be a way—he just didn't know how yet.

* * *

He found her a few minutes later, not in her apartment or in the flower shop but on the flower field her family had owned, watching with a blissfully listless expression the gentle blossoms sway in the wind. There was something about the emptiness of her look, the lack of something uniquely _Ino_ in it, that stuck him sharply in the heart like a hurtled kunai. 

"Hey," he greeted softly as he crouched down next to her sitting form on the ground.

If there was ever any certain sign that a shinobi was not in the fittest form of mind, it was when you managed to startle them with your appearance in a wide open plain where they would usually feel you coming from miles away. And there was no mistaking the sudden awareness and uncalled for wonderment in the azure orbs.

"Hi, Naruto. What brings you here?" She talked in a cheery, casual voice as though it could any longer wheedle him into believing she was fine.

As a stark contrast to the complete stillness of her body a moment ago when she'd only been scrutinizing the barely existent movement of the flower stalks, she became alive again as she began picking this one and that for a bouquet.

"I heard Yashimoto and Morimasa saying you didn't show at headquarters today even though they expected you, and wondered why." He looked at her closely, as if that alone would be enough to pry information from her. "Is anything the matter, Ino-chan?"

She looked up distractedly from collecting her bouquet to give him what she probably considered her reassuring glance but he deemed it a failure because he didn't feel the tiniest bit reassured.

"Oh, everything's alright, Naruto—I just slept in and something about the day made me feel like leaving it up to the rest of the shinobi force to deal with missions and reports. I'm sure I sent a scroll that I'm calling in for the day—how odd that they didn't get it." Her offhand behaviour had no effect on him either.

And the severe shadows under her eyes that she seemed to have gone out of her way to conceal with make-up before going outside did nothing to soothe his worry either. As a matter of fact, they only served to deepen his worry—she was lying about one thing for sure so what proof did he have that she wasn't lying about the rest as well?

"Ino," he began with a gravely serious voice, reaching out to stop the movement of her hand that plucked flowers so he would have her undivided attention. "If there's anything troubling you, you know you can always tell me."

"Yes, I know," she replied, in an equally slow and forced into seriousness out of courtesy tone. She didn't seem to understand the expectant look he was giving her.

"And?" he urged tentatively.

"And what?"

"_Is_ there anything troubling you?"

"I already told you, Naruto—I'm _fine_." She continued picking flowers with a small smile on her lips that didn't quite reach her eyes. "You worry too much."

Looking at her there, all alone and with an air of immutable gloom hanging over her, it was immensely hard to believe her words. But then again, what more could a friend do than just worry? He wanted to take action to fix whatever was weighting on his buddy's mind but how could he if she wouldn't let him? Ino wasn't one of the people who liked being forced into confessing things or having good will imposed on them without their specific asking for it.

What _could_ he do other than stand around, hoping against hope that she'd be able to overcome whatever demons she was battling in her mind and resurface over the darkness that was seizing her in a firmer and firmer grip with each passing day, before his very eyes? _How_ could he chuck her a candle to light her way in it if she didn't want to—

And it hit him. At that exact same moment, he had an epiphany of highest instance. It was so brilliant, so fool-proof, so freaking _genius_ that it bordered on divine intervention. The answer to his question was so easy and in the same time simply superb.

He didn't know it at that point in time, but he said the eight little words that would alter the course of his life forever.

"Would you like to move in with me?"

His ingenious proposition was greeted by deafening silence and lots of blinking.

* * *

_A/N: I want to thank every single one of you, my lovelies, because your great feedback drove me into writing faster and with more spunk than I have felt in the longest of time. It feels so exhilarating to be able to please my wonderful readers again. Thank you once again for your infallible support—I don't feel like I deserve it but I'm incredibly grateful for it nevertheless. __**Thank you**!_

_Even though it takes a while to develop and may seem a bit Out of Character in places (though I assure you that is only because of the situations themselves), I like to think that when it's done, this story will be able to whisk you away into a world of its own, where you will be able to let go of your own worries and empathize with the characters and feel like you are in their shoes for a day. So, give me one more chance and stay tuned for __**next chapter**__ because my current plans for it involve the slow but steady requiting of one girl__'s__ hopeless, unwanted crush. (winks). Yours sincerely, Dark Hope Assassin._

_**Edit 08/30/07:** Chapter proof-read, spelling, grammar, typing and meaning mistakes removed. I would also like to say that I stand firmly behind the notion of __'__no-excess-Japanese-in-the-chapter__'__, but without the -sans, -chans, -senpais and so on and so forth a part of what makes the characters and their relationships believable and uniquely _them _will be lost and I won__'t let that happen so I hope you pardon the little amount of Jap in a chapter every now and then. Thank you for your time once more._


	3. Moving In and On

The ringing in her ears was so loud that it was perfectly possible she had been hearing things and she dared not do any sudden movements for fear of the famous black veil curtaining her vision any moment now.

Another quite certain sign that she was about to black out was that she was very much aware of the impossible rate at which her heart was beating and that was a rare occurrence in and of itself—she was one of the calmest people alive. (Or so she liked to think. Boisterousness of character and inner calm are two very different things, so make no mistake in thinking otherwise.)

Though she could just as well be going insane because she had hallucinated in a very much realistic way that the question "Would you like to move in with me?" had come out of Naruto's mouth and that was just one of those things that only come true in one's wildest dreams.

Wasn't it?

There was _no way_ he could've seriously asked her that, right?

You don't just move in with someone you consider only a friend, correct? Even if they're your best friend. _Especially _when they're of the opposite gender. It was unconventional because it looked weird and it would be awkward.

Then again, when she considered the thought in all seriousness, Naruto wasn't ever exactly a conventional guy abiding by the rules and regulations, written or not, of normal _human_ society.

Okay, assume that the query wasn't just a figment of her sickly twisted imagination.

What of it? Could she seriously agree to an offer like that?

"Sure," a voice that was her own and yet at the same time nothing like it said, breaking the tension that was beginning to get tangible enough to slice through with a knife.

Obviously, after he had popped such a question at her out of the blue like that (because there was no longer room for any doubt that he _had_ asked just what she'd heard him ask in the very distant land that her mind was in right that instant) and not hearing a peep from her for such a long time, he had assumed that she would blow him off without another thought, so hearing her actually concede made him breathe a sigh of relief.

Heh—give it some thought and then kindly decline his proposition – now _there's_ a better thought than the course of action _she_ had chosen, she thought sourly.

But it was somehow difficult to begrudge herself her temporary dementia in agreeing to an offer like that when the guy was grinning so brilliantly, the light of his smile yet again illuminating the darkness that had surrounded her in the past days, casting away the shadows of her doubts like a magical charm. How was it possible for one person to have such an effect on another, just like that?

She'd always believed that to bring such serenity to one's garbled mind, the other needed to have a deep relationship with one. She would have never thought that someone she barely knew would be able to save her, a small bit at a time, from herself, from the torment and the darkness of her mind and soul. He didn't even know he was doing it, she was sure, he didn't even know _her_ but he wanted to help. He wanted to save everyone who needed saving because it was just who he was.

And what did she do?

She started deluding herself that she was special, that he'd find her special some day, realize that she had been, was and always would be better than Sakura in any way imaginable. She fantasized that he would see the tiny little light that shone beyond all the darkness inside her, the small fire of the flame that was purely Ino that had once burnt with dazzling brightness, that he would make it burn, blindingly brilliant, once again.

She'd become a shallow, shallow girl.

"So you're really going to move in? You're seriously moving in with me in my new flat?"

He fired those questions off one after the other with only slight alterations of phrasing and she wondered whether she was meant to answer any of them or not. But she gave a shaky little smile and a nod—the best she could do considering the shock in which she was herself—and that proved to be the wrong thing to do—or maybe not, depending on the point of view—because her repeated affirmation seemed to excite him even further.

"That's so _great_! I've never had a roommate before so I can't guarantee that you'll like living with me,"

There was no need for his guarantee—as it was she _knew_ it would end up as a living hell for her.

"But I'll do my best to be someone you'd be glad to come home to and not to make too much of a fuss or mess!"

Idiot… the problem _was_ that she'd look forward to coming back to the flat she shared with him_ too much_ … No matter how big of a mess he made, it would be impossible to make a greater disarray than that of her mind…

"So I'll go tell the landlord that there will be two of us on his hands now that you've decided to move in with me!"

Did he think it solidified her decision if he repeated it over and over again? If he shoved her idiocy right in her face over and over again?

There was no way for him to know that she'd been out of her mind when she'd agreed, the logical part of her argued but she ignored it—any _girl_ who agreed to an offer like _that_ coming from a _guy_ had to be off her rocker! Didn't he know that? How could he not understand that? How could _anyone_ be so antisocial not to know something like _that_?

Then again _she_ was the one who agreed. What did that make her?

"You can pack up your stuff and move any time you like, so, you know, you'll get no pressure from me," even though he'd rather she moved in soon, before she collapsed from whatever she was forcing herself through, he thought darkly. "Whenever you feel like it, just say the word and I'll come help you carry your stuff, alright?"

She gave a dull nod, her eyes slightly mismatched in her deep thought trance.

Naruto grinned widely and stood up.

"I'll take my leave now then—I have to inform the landlord, after all, and I'll have to move the empty boxes that I discarded as useful garbage in what will be your room once you move in." He gave a sheepish little laugh—like the soft chime of a thousand bells—and turned on his heel, waving at her over his shoulder. "Well then, till later then, Ino-chan!"

And he was gone.

But her anxiety was not.

What the hell was she thinking, agreeing to _live_ with him?

She could have gone on her self-destructive tirade for a long, long time but, some minutes after he'd left, she noticed that she was all alone in the wide open field and the wind was picking up.

The last thing she needed in a state as pathetically weakened was a cold. _That_ would be just a tad too much.

So, with vexingly wobbly lower extremities, she picked herself up and walked with stiff steps the beaten path to the village that she knew all too well. She didn't feel anymore, her thoughts were running a thousand miles per hour but all of them seemed to reach her from a very distant place and not quite successfully so all she could hear of them was a dull echo.

Ino plodded on, about as conscious of her motion as a soulless outer shell, towards Konohagakure.

* * *

She might have moved her legs, one after the other, one after the other, for seconds, minutes or even days. She had lost all sense of orientation along with her temporary loss of sanity it seemed and when she finally came to partially, she was in the middle of a bustling street of Konoha. 

Ino caught snatches of conversations as she passed by people—happy people, anxious people, lovey-dovey people, annoying people. She had no desire to listen to them, to be among them. Not one of them cared about her predicament, not one of them had a solution to her problem.

When had she come to be such a sociopath? Was it because she hadn't had any decent sleep in days? Or was it because she was being irritable lately, what with things not going the ways she wanted? Could she really have become petty enough to begrudge others because of her own mistakes and faults?

How disappointing she'd become…

She knew that moping wouldn't accomplish anything. She knew it well. What else was there to do besides mope though? She could keep fighting for the things she wanted, just as Asuma-sensei had instructed her with his last words. But what would that amount to? Her nightmares hadn't stopped even when she fought them off, she wouldn't have Naruto even if she tore Sakura to shreds in front of his very eyes.

…She wouldn't be able to pull her soul out of the dark deep ditch it had fallen into just by _believing_ in herself.

Something in her had broken.

What?

Why?

Could it be repaired?

Could it be replaced?

When would she be able to be herself again?

She was tired of being this angsty wimpy little girl. What did she have to do to free herself of the chains she'd put around herself? Why had she done it in the first place?

For the first time in her life, Ino couldn't find the answer to a question within herself.

Had she lost herself so completely that she could no longer even seek out the remnants of the previous her within her?

How pathetic can you _get_?

She was tired of being somebody else.

She was tired of her mind jabbing insults at her at any given chance.

Most of all, she was tired of _herself_.

All she wanted was to sleep. Sleep peacefully and deeply, and should she dream, to have a pleasant dream for once in years' time, one that would not have her tangled up in sheets, filthy with the cold sweat that had broken all over her body from the dreadful nightly vision that she'd had.

She wanted _freedom_.

Why was she not allowing herself to have it?

Was it that important to cling to one person, to one last straw, to a tiny ray of hope?

Why was she so desperate to be saved? Was she that scared of the dark enveloping her?

Maybe what she needed to do was stay in the quiet of the night, with all the lights out, awake all night and see that there was nothing scary about the darkness. Either that or fry her remaining brain cells with fear so there wouldn't be enough of Ino left to be petrified of inexistent monsters.

Her poison could be her cure for all she knew.

Maybe she should try that first thing she got back. Before going to live with Naruto because he'd go all worried and annoying on her, telling her that this was not the answer.

What did he know?

_He_ wasn't certainly the one wallowing in self-pity over not ever being able to win over the affections of the one he desires most.

No… He did the mature thing and kept trying, kept hoping.

Ino? Ino was tired of trying, tired of hoping. She was _so exhausted_ of being disappointed all the time. Her heart could take no more disappointment, no more betrayal, no more grief. All she needed was to lock herself away in her thoughts and just let this ghost of herself deal with the tediousness that her life had turned into.

Would anyone notice if she disappeared completely?

"Ino?" An uncertain voice roused her from her delirium, forcing her eyes to focus on the person blocking her path.

Sakura. It was Sakura standing in front of her, looking marginally distressed, her brows furrowed in what she guessed was worry.

Huh… Sakura, eh? About the second to last person she wanted to see right then.

The sane part of her mind told her that the medic was her friend, that she was concerned about her well-being which was why she had sought her out, stopped her when she'd seen the zombie she'd turned into.

But the domineering part of her, the one shrouded in darkness and delusion too thick to be broken by any voice of reason, shouted angrily that this was the reason for her unhappiness, the one who was robbing her of her light, the one who was stealing away the only person who could save her.

Her most hateful enemy. Her most hateful rival. The person whose existence meant only misery for Ino.

Was that how a friend was supposed to think of her best friend?

Horrifyingly, the question didn't even make it to Ino's conscience—it was discarded too quickly to do so.

She had discredited it completely.

She was utterly demented.

The pink-haired abomination, though, proved to have perseverance. Her brows drew together tighter and she made a look as though she was in pain. Heh, serves her right—maybe Ino would be able to welcome her to _her_ world of pain soon? Maybe then they could be _'friends'_ again.

How laughable.

Who'd been the one to break their friendship?

Wasn't it the very person who was hypocritically wondering how to offer her condolences for her sanity right then?

To think that this stupid crybaby would have thought Ino shallow enough back then to break their friendship over a _boy_, even if it was Uchiha Sasuke of all people.

She shuddered involuntarily at the thought of him—no, she shouldn't think of that guy, she didn't want to have a hysteric fit in a public place.

Even if Ino had been mature enough not to throw tantrums at Sakura over a guy before, she didn't consider herself above such things anymore.

Sakura had betrayed her trust once. It would never be whole again. It would never be the same as back then again. And so this gave Ino right to behave however she pleased with the second apprentice of the Godaime.

Yes, Ino had certainly kissed her beloved logic good-bye that day.

"Would you mind having a cup of coffee with me?" The pink-haired girl asked, biting her lower lip after saying that. Huh… Did she think she was being cute? Did she even _realize_ that this kind of thing might work on Naruto but her act wasn't getting through to _her_? "You look like you could use one to freshen up."

Peh… Keep making puns about how god-awful she must look, Pinky, and she might decide against the good tone of the truce and slap some sense into that airy head of yours.

Hm. Then again, a cup of coffee did sound nice, even though she'd have the displeasure of sharing it with Forehead Girl here. She'd certainly make it taste really sour no matter how many sugar cubes Ino dropped into the cup…

Oh well, might as well go to just shut her up and keep her away from herself for some time.

"Sure." Again, this voice, disembodied and vacuous. Ino hated it.

What's more surprising though, Billboard Brow seemed to notice it too—the change of demeanor obvious in her voice. What would you know—she wasn't as dense as Ino had initially thought her to be then.

And that's as much credit and attention as she was willing to give the bubble-gum hair-coloured atrocity. She deserved no more as far as Ino was concerned.

If the blonde had been herself, would she have wondered how much time it would take for this venom-spewing vice on her mind to let her loose?

* * *

They made their way towards their favorite café in suffocating silence, not once broken by either of them. Sakura didn't know what to say, for the first time the two had known each other, and Ino didn't care about saying anything in the first place. 

She was just letting Sakura tag along with her out of the generosity of her heart, after all. She saw no need to keep her entertained while at it too.

Her companion gave her a shaky smile once they were inside, where the wind couldn't ruffle their hair and bite their sensitive skin, and asked conversationally, "Which table would you like, Ino?"

"I don't care."

The Hokage's apprentice cringed at the scathing tone of her once-rival—had she done anything wrong to make Ino so angry with her?

She made a quick recovery though, plastering that wavering unconvincing smile on her face again. It was painful to look at—so pathetic.

"Then, let's just sit here?" She chose the table closest to them and Ino barely bit back a snort.

Oh, could it be she was making pretty little Sakura-chan uncomfortable?

Well, _good_.

And sit they did, although the medic wasn't sure if her friend was with her mentally at all, staring out through the window right next to her as though in a daze.

Throughout the first few minutes of their stay and while they ordered, it was blatantly obvious to Sakura that she was being given the cold shoulder though she had no clue as to why.

Was Ino angry with her for something she'd done? But how could she, when Sakura hadn't even been around her, what with her out of town mission and all?

Or was that actually the problem, that she hadn't done _anything_ whatsoever?

Of course, Sakura had been one of the first people to learn of the Yamanakas' death. Naturally, her first question when she heard the news was to ask where Ino was and how she was doing. She'd gotten the scare of a lifetime that her buddy had passed away and she'd just let it happen, hadn't even been able to say all the things she wanted to.

Relief was an understatement for describing the emotion that had seized all of her when Tsunade-sama told her Ino was quite fine physically but that she'd need some time to recover from such a great loss.

And Sakura had understood, even though she had no way of knowing what her comrade could possibly be going through because she had never lost a dear family member, although Sasuke could probably count as such…

She hadn't run to Ino's place immediately upon hearing what had happened because she didn't want her friend to think she was fussing over her. She knew the blonde didn't appreciate that kind of concern, that she'd find it annoying. Even though there was the slight off-chance that she might have been forgiven, because Ino knew she was a fussy girl to begin with.

But she'd chosen to give her some space instead. Give her space to cope with the shock and then gently take her hand afterwards and guide her back to the world of the living once she was done saying good-bye to those who had passed on so Ino would know her feelings regarding the matter, so she'd know she cared.

How had it come to this, sitting on the same table and acting like the other didn't exist?

How had it come to such estrangement instead of their hearts once more growing closer together, mending past mistakes?

Had Sakura made a great misjudgment?

Had Sakura not been a good enough friend to Ino?

Such thoughts made unwanted tears well in her eyes and that wouldn't do. She was supposed to keep a clear head and help _Ino_, not have Ino helping _her_.

Besides, the blonde youth didn't seem in the mood to have a crying girl at her hands in the first place.

The pink-haired adolescent was walking on very thin ice there. One wrong step and she'd sink into waters cold enough to make her heart freeze. And it definitely didn't help that Ino hadn't once looked at her face since seeing her on the street.

Why didn't they teach at the academy how to handle a touchy moody friend instead of all that useless blather about self-preservation and whatnot?

But it was not in Sakura's character to just let such things go without trying so she pushed on, despite the discouragement, whether intentional or not, she was receiving from Ino.

"Naruto's been worried about you, you know." She began carefully, studying her fellow's expression for any and every reaction that would show on it. A shadow flickered in the azure eyes but it was gone before she could identify the emotion it stood for. Still she pushed on. "Now that I finally meet you myself I can see his reasons for being concerned. Are you really alright, Ino?"

Her tone was coaxing, soothing, calm. It annoyed the daylights out of Ino. If she was so eager to please, then why didn't the pink monster just disappear from her life? Things would be a whole lot easier without her and her unnecessary, feigned concern.

"What are you talking about, Forehead Girl? I'm fine." Her companion was obviously too caught up in the drama she thought the two of them were starring in to mind the insulting name. She snorted, disgruntled, into her cup after taking a sip from it. "Please—stop making that absolutely pathetic expression, would you? It doesn't suit you very well."

"Did I do something to set you off, Ino?" she couldn't help but ask. The light eyebrow quirked slightly upwards, an irritated twitch that resurfaced every now and then that Ino made a mental note to rid herself of. "Just tell me what it is and I'll try to make it up to you."

Another unlady-like grunt from her interlocutor—though she could hardly classify as such with her one-worded or biting responses—while she shifted further away from Sakura in her seat. It felt like being poked in the side with something really pointy and hard, to have the person who she'd considered almost a family member to feel the need to put more physical distance between them to feel more comfortable.

She suddenly felt so lonely, even though the two of them were still sitting at the same table.

Desperation seized Sakura's heart in a firm grip. Fear crept in her brain. Was she losing her, just this instant? Was she letting Ino slip away between her fingers? What was this uneasy feeling of being unwelcome in her presence? Why was she forced to believe that she was somewhere she didn't belong?

Just what in the world was going on there?

"Please don't turn your back on me, Ino! At least give me a chance to explain!"

The ivory-skinned heavy eye lids contracted once, narrowing the azure eyes' gaze for a single second.

"Explain?" the hollow voice that Ino was convinced was _not_ hers reiterated. "What's there to explain?"

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when you lost your parents!" A tiny flicker of recognition crossed the cornflower blue gaze. "I wanted to give you space because I know how much they meant to you and anything I could have said back then would have only angered you. I didn't think that you'd be angrier that I wasn't even there. I'm really sorry, Ino, so please don't be like this anymore."

_Don't be this hateful person anymore_—she didn't say it but Ino heard it regardless. Rather she _saw_ it, in the emerald orbs that were once the only thing she needed to believe in, their possessor the only person she considered a friend.

A dark look came over the blonde's features and cast ugly shadows to her once brilliant gaze. It scared Sakura. She'd never seen that kind of expression before—so genuinely resentful, so distant and cold…

"Do _not_ bring my parents into this, Sakura!" She slammed the cup she had just finished drinking onto its small plate, rage burning in her lackluster eyes.

The other girl was taken aback.

"If it's not about that then… what's wrong, Ino? Don't you trust me enough to tell me? I thought we were friends." The little manipulative bitch would not win her over with her poor acting. She wasn't convinced at all and she didn't even feel any pity for her. All she wanted to do was crush her so _she _would be able to be happy again.

"Yeah… I thought so too, Sakura." The platinum haired girl collected her things and got up from the table, walking away from the shell-shocked medic. "I guess we all make mistakes in our judgement of others every now and then, huh?"

And with that she left without a backwards glance, leaving a shaking and sobbing Haruno in her wake.

* * *

She should've felt accomplished. 

She should've felt content that she'd achieved the purpose of her journey to the coffee house with Sakura.

She should've been glad that she had crumpled her when she'd had the idiocy to put down all her guards, to expose herself to the point hurting her would be a child's play if she only wished for it.

Instead, she felt like the most horrible person in existence.

A creature as low as her shouldn't even be considered a person.

She'd torn down a friend who had only meant well, who had been concerned about her and her well-being, even if she had chosen the wrong way to deal with it.

She was the worst.

She felt even hollower after the coffee cup than she had been before it.

There was a gaping hole inside her chest and its only purpose was to destroy everything it could. First Ino, then her friends.

She hated that. She hated herself too.

She needed sleep. Sleep would reinforce her, even if it was nightmare infested because she wouldn't give in to her nightly horrors anymore, and it would give her the strength to tell Sakura what was really wrong, why she had truly been so cold to her.

She needed _something_, but it wasn't sleep.

She didn't know what it was, didn't care enough to search for it.

So, instead, she just took the route for her flat, determined on curing whatever was wrong with her because the Ino she had become she couldn't live with, couldn't bear to share a body with.

This wasn't her, she was very much certain.

But if it wasn't, who was it then?

* * *

Naruto had been about to enjoy cup ramen for lunch after a job well done of convincing the landlord that whether it was one or two people didn't make any difference. He was quite pleased with himself because he'd managed to assure the elderly man that Ino would actually be a good influence on him and would make him into a better tenant with her presence. He had been amazed when the guy consented—though reluctantly—and allowed their move in with each other. 

It was an occasion worthy of celebration!

Although he would have eaten steaming cup ramen even if the meeting hadn't gone well. But that was just besides the point.

He was about to dig into the tempting bowl of heavenly goodness when there was a knock to his door.

The blonde face faulted. People nowadays had the worst timing.

"Come in, it's open!" he yelled anyway, preparing a second bowl for whoever was coming to visit him in his new flat that he would soon be sharing with Ino-chan—even though he wasn't one much for sharing food, he didn't want to be considered a bad host by anyone.

He heard the door creak open hesitantly then click closed the next moment while he was putting the ramen in the microwave oven. When he turned around, the shock of pink hair caught his attention instantly and the complementary grin whenever he saw the girl that was visiting him resurfaced.

"Sakura-chan! Welcome! What brings you here?" He asked cheerfully, gesturing her to a chair across the table from him.

And that was the first moment he actually had a chance to really _look_ at his guest.

She looked a mess.

He wasn't an expert but judging by the redness and puffiness of her eyes she had probably been crying before coming to him.

His good mood evaporated immediately to be replaced with alarm.

"Sakura-chan, what's wrong? Did something happen?" He was at her side in a breath, crouching next to her seated slumped form.

When the emerald orbs turned to him for the first time that day, Naruto felt a sharp pang of pain shoot at his heart and pierce his very soul at the look that his long-time teammate was giving him. He put a much larger hand over hers and squeezed reassuringly—she wasn't alone anymore, she didn't need to shoulder whatever was burdening her on her own.

"She hates me." She said it in such a low and meek voice had he not been standing just beside her he probably would have not heard her.

His brows drew together in confusion.

"Who does?"

"Ino." There was a definite hollowness in her voice and the despair was easy to see on her face. It tore at his insides to see ever strong Sakura in such a state.

"What could have given you that kind of idea, Sakura-chan? There's no way such a thing could be true!" After all, he'd just been with Ino a few hours ago and she had seemed fine. And, besides, there's no way she would have helped him with the girl's birthday present if she hated her, right?

The mere thought of _Ino_ and _Sakura_ being on bad enough terms to consider either of them _hating_ the other was preposterous. It couldn't fit inside Naruto's head. He refused to believe it possible.

"I was just with her. I can tell she hates me." The emptiness of her gaze was soul-scaring.

"Did she actually _say_ that?" A barely discernible shake of the pink tresses of her fringe was all the answer he got to his query. "Then how can you be so sure? Don't be so pessimistic, Sakura-chan—I'm sure that Ino must have just had a bad day!"

But if she had indeed had a bad day, whose fault was that when he was the person she'd parted ways with before encountering her long-time friend? The notion clouded his already dampened mood.

"She didn't need to say it. She knew I had my defenses lowered, that I would take whatever she said or did to heart, so she behaved like that on purpose; she wanted me to know she didn't think anything of me anymore. She just wanted to get rid of me." Her jaw tightened at that confession, her jade eyes hardening. "I was nothing but a nuisance to her. I was worried but she didn't want to hear it. I wanted to make it up to her but she didn't want me anywhere near her. I was vulnerable and she used it against me. She hates me and she won't even tell me where I went wrong."

Whether she was crucifying herself over what happened or she focused on hating her once closest fellow kunoichi, Naruto couldn't be sure and didn't even want to know. He wouldn't let it last either way.

"I'm sure this is all just a big misunderstanding, Sakura-chan; please don't do this to yourself."

He gave her hand another squeeze that gained the girl's attention. Her eyes narrowed and she looked like she was about to lash out at him—for not understanding her situation or for not being any real help at all—but he beat her to the next word.

"I know Ino can be harsh at times but there must be a reason for it, so don't give up on her. She's been withering those past few days and if you turn your back on her now she might lose herself completely. She's just not herself and she doesn't know what she's saying, she doesn't mean a word of it, I'm sure, so, please, please don't give her up so easily!"

But his teammate wouldn't relent that quickly.

"Mourning doesn't justify purposefully wanting to make others suffer as well, Naruto," she seethed and he knew that it was not his face she was seeing when she said that. "She's my best friend but I won't stand for her walking all over me to make herself feel better!"

"I'm not asking you to!" he parried, although that was exactly what he was doing. "Just… keep trying to get through to her, okay? If you don't want to do it for her, do it for me, please?"

The young woman glared at him but the absolutely pitiful expression he was making was already achieving its goal. She could feel herself softening at him. She snorted and crossed her arms in a last attempt to have things her way.

"Why are you so stubborn about this? Since when do you care what goes on between Ino and me?" she demanded somewhat imperiously, somewhat petulantly.

The youth smiled gently at her and stood up to fetch the ramen bowl from the microwave, where it had been left forgotten when the object of his affections had walked into the kitchenette in such a distressed state.

"Because she let me get closer to her and actually know her and now we're friends." The light in his eyes dimmed a bit—or was it just her imagination playing tricks on her?—as he said, "That and I can understand what she's going through right now and I know that the only cure for it is not alienating yourself from the people who worry about you."

Sakura blinked a few times, nonplussed.

"I don't get what you're saying, Naruto," she admitted, cocking an eyebrow at the boy in question. He mirrored her, his own brow rising in surprise.

"She hasn't told you about her problem?" he asked cryptically, only puzzling the girl further. Her eyes narrowed irascibly again.

"Stop talking riddles and get to the point already, will you? What kind of problem could she _possibly_ have, except the one with her sucky personality?" Her temper was starting to flare and it was easy to see, but he wasn't about to be intimidated by just that.

"Her phobia?" he prompted cautiously, but Sakura's expression was just as vexed as before, no recognition sparking on her face.

And it dawned on him. Ino hadn't told Sakura about her fear of the dark. The attitude of the Fifth's apprentice was also conviction enough that his fellow blonde had been right in her judgement.

"Eh? Phobia? What kind of phobia could Ino, of all people, have? I know about the calories counting thing but I don't think that classifies as a phobia in the medical sense of the word." She looked contemplative at once but nothing seemed to spring to mind.

"Ah, you think so?" He laughed sheepishly and she could tell that it was a forced laugh, as was the smile he had pasted on his face. "Nevermind then!"

The pink-haired successor of Tsunade growled irritably.

"That's not what you were going to say—I can easily tell it isn't. Spit it out already, Naruto—I hate this kind of games you play!" She slammed her hand on the table and it would have probably made any other person besides the seasoned Kyuubi vessel in front of her flinch. As it was, he didn't even look remotely phased by her outburst.

Now that was just _great_. First Ino blew her off, then Naruto was being all secretive and playing the good guy, not giving her potentially crucial information on her friend's well-fare. She was _intri_—ahem, _concerned_, was that so hard for his thick head to understand?

"I'm sorry, Sakura-chan, but if Ino hasn't told you already, you'll have to ask her yourself. I don't betray people's trust."

Well wasn't _he_ a ray of fucking sunshine?

But she wouldn't begrudge him the fact that he was doing the honorable thing and keeping whatever secret Ino had told him to himself, even though he'd just been on the verge of spilling it if she'd only played her cards better, she fumed to herself.

The realization hit her like a ton of bricks to the head.

Ah… So that's why Naruto knew and she did not.

That's why she gave her the cold shoulder and not Naruto.

No wonder she hadn't known something was wrong with Ino—if she'd been in her stead, she wouldn't have told herself either.

And all along Sakura had thought that she'd matured over the years, and things had changed.

Well, this only went to prove that some things needed effort to be uprooted.

And the pink-haired medic wasn't someone afraid of a little hard work.

She'd make sure that when she was done dealing with herself, she'd become a person worthy of others' trust, someone who believed unconditionally in people who are precious to them.

And she'd get back at Ino for not coming to her when she needed to talk to someone who'd understand, for not believing in _her_, and for bashing her when she knew it would hurt the most.

"Here, I made this for you," Naruto said and the next moment a bowl of steaming ramen was placed on the table in front of her.

She grimaced and looked up at the guy.

"It's ramen," she told him obviously, as if he didn't already know. He chortled.

"I know and it's great! Try it!"

"I'm on a diet—I'm not going to eat it," the girl announced, steadfast in her decision. Her teammate groaned.

"Oh, come on, Sakura-chan, it's just one bowl of ramen."

"Exactly—it's a _whole bowl_ of ramen. I'm not having it so you can eat it yourself. I know you want to." She smirked devilishly and he tried not to look into the statement too much for things that weren't in it. Instead, he insisted on his point, even though he really _did_ want her portion for himself as well.

But ramen always tasted better when shared with someone, so he stood his ground.

"Come on, Sakura-chan, it's just ramen! Ramen's not even all that nutritious! It's just like _soup_!" He was defiling the qualities of his most favourite dish but if it made his companion eat with him, he was sure he would be forgiven by the Ramen gods. Some day… hopefully…

"Ramen has _noodles_, Naruto. Noodles are practically bread and bread is bad for the waistline." She pushed the bowl away from herself demonstratively. "So you can keep your precious liquid bread to yourself and I'll just keep up with my healthy vegetable-only diet." She nodded to herself, as though she had won a battle of some sort and the young man across from her on the table sweat dropped while pulling the shamed ramen bowl closer to himself.

"Alright, alright, if you're _that_ averse to it," he muttered disdainfully. "Geez, Sakura-chan, you sound so much like Ino when it comes to ramen."

He didn't say it on purpose to manipulate her into doing what he wanted. Honestly, he didn't. He hadn't even considered that such a statement in the current situation that the two girls were in—what with Sakura's reborn antagonism and all—would spur his teammate into doing the complete opposite of what her blonde counterpart had done.

But still it accomplished what his cajoling hadn't been able to.

A fire burnt bright ablaze in her jade orbs and an ugly sneer twisted her features.

"Give me that!" she snapped, prying the bowl from his hands and digging in with way too much vigour.

Naruto laughed as he watched her, splitting his own chopsticks and starting to eat soon after her.

* * *

Ino couldn't see anything—the darkness had free reign inside her room and mind. Her whole body was stock still, as though in preparation to be struck by some invisible force. She was laying back-first on her bed but by the arrest in which her lungs had gone she might as well have been lying with her head buried in her pillow, choking the life out of her slowly but surely. 

This was her punishment and her salvation. This was the only way to freedom.

Right?

She thrashed about in the sticky covers, a prisoner in her own home, to her own mind. She didn't make a sound but violent tremors had seized hold of her long, long ago, when the sun had first set upon her room. There wasn't a single light in the room she'd drawn the curtains to. There was nothing but her and the dark inside her heart.

No corporate monster approached her, not one living nightmare came at her. The night was warm but she felt freezing cold, beads of sweat rolling down the sides of her face and making her eyes, opened as wide as they went in the dark so she'd be able to catch even the faintest of movements should it come to that, stinging her vision and making her insides constrict in immaterial pain.

When had this begun?

Since when had she become this weak-willed, jittery person?

Wasn't she supposed to be the strong one?

Wasn't her psyche supposed to be better than this, stronger than it, above such pettiness?

She'd become redundant as a friend, redundant as a denizen of the village, and redundant as a human being.

She was just a bunch of nerves now, fried and strained, pitiable and pathetic.

She had no worth anymore, with no more fight left in her.

She shuddered and maybe she had closed her eyes because the red she saw beyond them was too vivid for her to have caught it in the darkness of the premise. It jolted her awake with a rough jerk and hitched her already ragged breathing. Her mind ran a thousand miles per hour as her head snapped back and forth, looking for the source of her distress.

When she realized that there was only impenetrable darkness all around her, she calmed somewhat, still anxious and on edge but lay back down, face turned towards the white ceiling she couldn't see.

And to think that all she wanted was to have some _sleep_…

When she finally drifted off, it was to a fitful sleep, just as uneasy as her state when she was awake, filled with nightmares of blood red orbs with three commas in them following her every move, calculating when the best time to take her life would be.

But at least she didn't wake up again until morning.

And that was a quite optimistic place to start the day.

* * *

She went to work the next day but her mind and heart were so much not into it that even her boss saw it and dismissed her at lunch. Well, that only went to show that she'd become redundant as a shinobi too—oh, joy. 

Having nothing to do with herself, she just resorted to roaming the village aimlessly, missing Sakura, who marched straight for her work place with the intention of demanding what the hell was going on, just by a few seconds.

Her eyes were drooping and her face and muscles felt completely stiff. She felt like a rusting mechanic gadget and she didn't appreciate it.

All those restless nights were going to get her fired soon if she didn't pull herself together so she might as well start trying harder.

She went straight for the training grounds with solely that thought in mind. Yamanaka Ino was not about to become the victim of imaginary monsters, however petrifying they might appear to her jumbled head.

She stretched her limbs and was just about to begin the real training when she heard a rustle in the thicket behind her.

Spinning quickly on her heel in alarm, kunai at the ready, she dropped her fighting stance when she saw that it was only coyly smirking Sakura who had her all worked up. She snorted, turning her back at the girl—sure, she felt sorry for what she'd done yesterday but not sorry enough to go and _apologize_ to her.

"Ah, if it isn't dearest Forehead Girl. Do tell, Forehead, what brings you here to the mere mortal training ground? You here to show off your supreme sniveling powers?"

A vein popped into visibility on the medic's forehead and her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.

'Patience,' the Fifth's pupil reminded herself. 'Be patient, Sakura, she doesn't know what she's saying, those are the words he used, right? She doesn't know what she's saying; right.' She nodded in approval to herself and leant against a tree next to the place Ino was doing her stretches.

"I heard you're moving in with Naruto."

Ino whole body froze, all her processes receding into stasis for a moment she thought lasted an eternity. She didn't know how she was supposed to react, what she was supposed to say to that.

Luckily for her, Sakura took care of her replying problem right away.

"Intriguing that I had to hear that from him first considering that I went to you before his place." Her brows narrowed over her eyes and a dark look swept over her. "Were you _ever_ going to tell me?"

If she hadn't had too much dignity, the blonde girl might have been sweating bullets at that point. Was she ever going to tell her—what was _that_ supposed to mean? It couldn't be that Sakura was starting to take interest in her life-long teammate… could it?

The prospect made her heart constrict.

"What's it to you?" Again, that voice. It was despicable and it wasn't hers but at least it was strong and indifferent, it did not betray her. Unlike the girl who stood to her side, it did not betray her.

Sakura's throat emitted a low growl that gathered Ino's attention enough to pause her stretching exercises.

"How am I supposed to have confidence that if anything's wrong you'll tell me if you don't even tell me the most basic things, like your change of address, Ino?" Her voice had risen a notch and the volume grated on the recipient's already roughed up nerves but the fact her fears hadn't come true made her ease up a tiny bit. Sakura still didn't care. She wasn't interested. She didn't care.

Should she really be feeling this relief? She was lower than low now for sure. To wish misfortune upon the pink-haired abortion was one thing but upon poor, hopeful, innocent Naruto? She was a horrible, horrible person.

"Will you at least _look at me_ when I'm talking to you?" the girl finally snapped, stepping up to her childhood role model, turning her roughly so they ended up face to face.

Had she not seen the very same vacuity up close yesterday, she might have gasped. Instead, she just gritted her teeth and strengthened her hold on the other's wrist, hoping that it might bruise.

"If you want me to apologize for yesterday, fine, you have my sorry for my crappy mood." It was just like her, to twist her own emotion, to hide the sincerity of her words behind the severity of her tone—_when_ would she be free from this? "And I'm _so sorry_ that you had to hear from Naruto that we're moving in together but there is nothing more to discus. For all I know you might be blind or just that stupid but I'm trying to train here."

Her tone stung and it stung hard. Didn't know what she was saying? Like _hell_ she didn't! She knew perfectly well and she did it on purpose, was a bitch to the person who fretted over her on purpose. Was _that_ how you treat your friends, Sakura wondered angrily. She wasn't about to let up though.

"What are you so afraid of, Ino? Why are you trying to shove me away?"

She might have halted her tries to free her limb from the other's grasp if she hadn't known that it would be a dead give away.

Why _was_ she trying to shove her away, the garbled part of her mind pondered briefly, not caring long enough to hear the explanation.

_Because she was becoming _this_… this gruesome person who recognized neither friend nor foe before striking. Because Yamanaka Ino was lost to the darkness and she'd probably never come around again…_

"Well, it's certainly obvious that it's not _you_ I'm afraid of, isn't it?" she said testily, wrenching her wrist free of Sakura's hold.

"Naruto mentioned something about a phobia that I've heard nothing about." This time, she couldn't help looking horrified. He'd told _her_ about her greatest weakness? He, whom she had confided in, whom she had trusted in, had given away the only thing she didn't want to tell Sakura?

Her ire bubbled once again, her emotions easy to swing in her trance-like state of awareness. Sakura was quick to recover too though.

"Don't make such a scary expression, Miss Secrecy. He told me _about _it, not what it was. Calm down a bit, won't you?" With her anger submerging completely her thoughts became once again unreadable to her fellow kunoichi.

So Naruto hadn't betrayed her.

Of course he wouldn't—he was her light; he'd never betray her. Not the way Sakura had, never the way Sakura had.

"Will you tell me why you're so angry with me?" The full-time working medic demanded imperiously, a malevolent glint in her eye. "I want to know what made me fall from favour with you—I have a right to know."

"You have no right to anything, Forehead Girl. Leave." She turned her back to the other girl, platinum pencil-straight hair swishing importantly behind her the way a cape would if she had one.

"No, I won't." The bubble-gum hair-coloured adolescent announced, crossing her arms over her chest stubbornly. The azure eyes of her companion flashed dangerously when she looked at her.

"Stop pushing me, Billboard Brow, because I'm quite close to resorting to physical force to remove you from my sight."

"Try me then—I've long ago become stronger than you and that way, when you're tired and you can't go anywhere once I'm done with you, you'll have no other choice than to answer me or at least listen to what I have to say!"

Both girls gritted their teeth, anger boiling in their veins, both tempers quick to flare at a challenge.

"So you want to _fight_ me? I'm not as weak as I was on the first Chuunin exam when we tied, Sakura-_chan_—don't think that we'll finish equally this time!" Ino taunted, her hand subconsciously going to her kunai pouch.

"If fighting you and beating your sorry ass is what's necessary to get you to take me seriously once again, then _fine_, so be it, let's fight!" Her emerald eyes narrowed again and a sly smile stretched her face in an unbecoming way. "You wanted to train, correct? There is no better training than striving to beat an opponent stronger than you, wouldn't you agree?"

"You're all talk, Sakura, and I'll show you that once you're laying face-first on the ground before my feet."

They fell into battle ready stances, neither ready to make the first move for fear of it deciding the whole battle in an unfavorable for them manner.

And, as far as Ino's mind went, it was in overdrive, more alive than it had been for quite a while.

Sakura's strengths were her precise use of chakra in the right time, her monstrous strength, her ability of instantly spotting a genjutsu and her medic jutsu, her opponent analyzed calmly.

She had no idea how the girl would do as far as stamina went though, and she had no clue what her element was or even if she knew.

So she'd have to give it a try and find out.

When both of them charged towards one another, the battle had been given an official unvoiced start.

* * *

Naturally, after charging right in, Sakura had thrown a punch with a bit of her chakra channeled in. And, naturally, it had been dodged because otherwise she doubted that the match would've gone on for a long time afterwards. 

And, when she saw Ino's supple movements, the way she could gracefully bend her body this way and that, swaying away mockingly from Sakura's attacks, the pink-haired girl couldn't help but wonder how long it had actually been since she'd seen Ino in action.

It was just like her to throw herself into a mess head-first, without really considering the situation too well first when it came to her blonde counterpart, but, for the first time in a long while, Sakura felt that maybe she had underestimated an opponent greatly.

If she hadn't known about Ino taking up flexibility exercises to heart, how much else was there about her fighting style that she didn't know? For an instance, did she still use her Mind Switch bloodline technique?

She'd been so arrogant, not interested in anyone else's growth but her own, completely ignoring everyone else but her teammates as far as nindou went.

But she was given no time to wallow in her lapse in judgement for when she wasn't throwing chakra-charged punches or kicks, Ino was onto her with her precisely aimed for certain spots attacks of her own, her bendable extremities a huge advantage to her assaults.

For a while, all they did was try to hit and then parry the next blow thrown at them from the other and it was becoming like a dance in a vicious circle and it was getting them nowhere, or so Sakura believed, so she put her back into it a little more and made a few Clones of herself to distract Ino and then strike her down, just like she'd done all those years ago.

But when the time to hit came, her punch was evaded as the other kunoichi doubled over backwards, leering widely at her opponent. It was impossible to retract her limb in time to dodge the swift kick to her jaw that followed, Sakura realized and Ino had seen through her tactic from the start.

Stumbling a step back, the medic growled lowly to herself, nursing her jaw. She'd have to use some of the new tricks that she had learnt if she wanted this fight to have the outcome she desired.

When Ino came in close enough to attack her again, the girl ducked a roundhouse kick aimed for her neck and slammed her chakra powered fist in the ground, making it crack and crumble under the blonde's feet. She lost her balance as foreseen and Sakura used her temporary disorientation to slam her foot into the girl's chest, sending her flying backwards.

"Shannaro!" the girl standing on her feet triumphed, shaking her fist suggestively at her opponent who had slammed hard into a tree trunk on the far end of the training ground.

Luck was on Sakura's side that day, she decided. If Ino had been a long range fighter, things would've been really hard to deal with…

* * *

Ino rubbed away roughly the small trail of blood that was trickling from the side of her mouth. Sakura sure kicked hard for someone who had been tugging pitifully on her arm just the day before. 

But that kick had served to show Ino that she may have the upper hand in stamina and her constant attacks to the other girl had proved she was the more technical and the faster one.

She grabbed a few kunai and wrapped exploding tags around their hilts so they wouldn't be too conspicuous and she threw them—it seemed—at Sakura which she dodged effortlessly. The girl had been about to complain that her blonde friend wasn't taking their fight seriously when a blur ran past her and slammed an open palm in her stomach, sending her hurling back towards the tree trunk in which the kunai had embedded themselves.

With a strangled groan, the girl doubled over for a bit and when she looked up and noticed the exploding tags already burning away with the chakra infused in them, it was too late to jump away far enough to dodge them. But, channeling chakra to her feet, she managed to bounce away just in time for the several explosions only to make her feet suffer some minor damage.

As she was breathing a tiny sigh of relief of avoiding a cunningly planned trap, she saw something sharp and steely fly at her with her peripheral vision and Sakura barely managed to duck her head in time not to lose one of her eyes but, when she did, another kunai stabbed her upper thigh with painful force.

Moaning, she removed the object from her leg, looking with blazing eyes at the opponent but she didn't seem to have done anything—just running towards her in the meanwhile.

Had she wrapped the exploding tags to the kunai like that as to make sure that the knives would fly at her after the explosion? Where did she learn that?

Ino ran at her, throwing swift punch after long-legged kick, forcing Sakura back into defensive, rendering her unable to prepare any attacks on her own.

But when her fist finally connected with the other girl's midriff, "Sakura" exploded in smoke to be replaced by the telltale log. The blonde gasped and looked around for her counterpart but her ankle had already been caught by the other young woman and a cool, chakra-glowing hand made contact with her upper thigh, just the spot where her kunai had dug into Sakura's after the explosion.

She jumped away, as though scalded although she hadn't felt any pain at the contact, but at the attempted sudden movement, her leg that had been tampered with gave away and it took all her concentration not to fall on her face just then.

The pink-haired medic ninja stood up from the rubble of her first surprise attack where she'd hidden herself and watched as Ino tried to force her limb to move.

"It's useless trying to wake it up—I used my medic jutsu on it. This way we're still on equal footing, even after you pulled that explosion stunt."

But her companion didn't seem interested in listening what she had to say on the matter.

Instead, she just lifted a hand to Sakura's view which, in front of the med nin's very eyes, glowed with healing chakra. Cursing under her breath, Sakura charged her own arm too to heal her wounded leg as well because she knew if Ino healed herself first, she'd be at a great handicap and hard-pressed to win this showdown.

And Sakura wasn't one of the people who took losing well, so she avoided it at all costs whenever possible.

When they collided again, the pink-haired girl did her best to parry her rival's hits with one hand only, using her other to reach into her pouch and throw a kunai with an exploding tag on it.

It slammed into the ground harmlessly but the detonation made Ino jump back, putting some space between the two females. She swore when she noticed her visibility was limited thanks to the tag—was it custom made or something? Regular tags didn't make that much of a smoke screen. So then the pink atrocity still had some hope left that she'd win.

Before she could change course she was forced back onto the broken earth where Sakura's fist had destroyed the forest floor and the next kunai hurtled through the smoke cloud—how could she _aim_ through that?—seemed to detonate some exploding tags left among the chunks of greenery beneath her.

It was like hellfire—wherever she tried to escape, another tag exploded and brought about a coughing fit for her with it.

When she finally got out, her eyes were teary and her clothes ripped and smoked beyond recognition. And the bitch dared look smug about herself! That stupid copycat!

"You're not the only one who can come up with plans for traps as she goes along, you know," that irritating voice of her nemesis came to her as the smoke cleared completely, leaving just the two of them standing on the two sides of the large crater that was all which was left from Sakura's little game.

She'd pay for that, Ino promised herself as she rubbed her eyes clear of the stinging sensation but instead of helping, the action only put more soot in her eyes, blinding her temporarily.

Not being enough of a fool just to stand around when the opponent was so obviously vulnerable, the pink-haired apprentice of the Hokage jumped into action, uprooting a small tree and swinging it around to sweep her antagonist away with it. After she swung, though, only a log appeared and she growled low in her chest, making as if to discard the unneeded tree.

But as she let go, she saw movement just out of the corner of her eyes, in her blind spot.

Ino had hidden in the tree when she'd swung it—the whole eye rubbing thing had probably been a ploy in the first place—and ran its length while Sakura wasn't looking, throwing a kick with all her weight into it but her plan had collapsed into itself the moment the recipient of her attack had noticed her—Sakura caught her foot before it could collide with her body and grinned malevolently, freeing one of her hands and channeling chakra to it, preparing to bring Ino's knee out of commission.

When she touched the kneecap though, "Ino" burst into a cloud a smoke to be replaced by yet another log.

'Shit, I looked away for too long, where is she?' thought Sakura frantically as she turned about to scan her surroundings but she was given no time to react. All she saw was a balled fist flying straight at her face before it connected with her jaw and sent her in freefall backwards, her body scraping the ground as she slid roughly against it.

Ino straightened, a very thin sheen of sweat coating her forehead as she scrutinized the straightening Sakura, assessing her next possible move.

The lying girl, on the other hand, had a hard time coping with the fact she'd actually let her guard down enough not to notice a Replacement when encountering one.

And that punch—it hadn't been chakra enhanced, like hers always were, but it hurt like _hell_. To think that Ino, who'd looked like a walking corpse, would have enough energy to hit like that.

She pushed herself back to her feet quickly, the breath knocked out of her from that last attack she'd received. There were nasty scratches all over her body but so was Ino, so she didn't feel the need to heal that. Besides, using energy for healing made her attack power in storage also drop—she couldn't allow that.

Damn… Maybe she should take a leaf out of the Fifth's book and start storing some chakra for later use—that would prove very handy in a fight, even if not used for the Genesis of Rebirth.

"I say we stop the warming up now and get to the real fight, what would you say, Forehead Girl?" Ino yelled across the clearing, tightening the binds around her waist, upper arms and lower legs. Sakura flinched and was thankful for the space between them because it made her temporary weakness impossible for the other girl to see.

"Stop bragging and just do your worst, Pig!"

Sakura had chakra control to boost her speed but Ino had the upper hand in that department because of her lighter weight and much more supple form. Obviously, she was better when it came to stamina and she still had the fact of her opponent having no clue what she might do next on her side.

Now was the time for a mind-boggling swift attack that would decide the end to the match.

So, crouching slightly, Ino's hands flew deftly into a few seals the other couldn't have possibly discerned and raced off, the dust she roused in her wake the only clue as to her exact trek.

The pink-haired girl found it difficult not to feel panicked. She could barely even see Ino now, dashing in a circle around her, almost to the point of wondering if there was only one of Ino in the first place. But it was impossible that she knew the Shadow Replication… right?

The girl didn't get to muse over that thought much longer because the hypnotizing haze that was the running Ino jumped up at her, a kunai in her mouth that she attacked with.

A sense of déjà vu washed over Sakura and she had to fight down the memories of the Mist Nin, Momochi Zabuza, who she had seen use this kind of technique before, to keep a clear head into the current showdown.

She barely had time to draw a kunai from her own pouch to protect herself from the onslaught and she missed the several hand signs that Ino made before retreating to surrounding Sakura in a tornado-like circle of a flurry of leaves and grass. The pink-haired medic cringed, wondering if she was perhaps about to get a taste of the Secondary Lotus from someone other than the eccentric Lee and whether the fast pace at which her opponent was spinning around her was the reason for the feeling of slight nausea that was rising in her.

She got her act together in time to see Ino leap up at her from the side this time, but much higher and the seals she made she could now see clearly. And maybe she had intentionally done them slower, so Sakura could recognize the final one, the peculiar Tiger seal.

The Hokage's student had never put too much thought in exercising her element because she had medic ninjutsu which, in the right hands, was suited for both offence and defense, so she hadn't paid much attention to other people's elements either. She was just about to learn how big a mistake that would prove to be.

For all she knew it was perfectly possible for Ino's to be Fire.

"Fire Release: Phoenix Fire Technique!" the unmistakable voice of Ino announced, and, sure enough, white-hot flames that would reduce anything to ashes upon touch came from her mouth and went towards her opponent.

But Sakura wasn't about to just stand there and let herself be incinerated. She plunged her arm deep into the soil beneath her and grabbed a large chunk of earth behind which she hid as a shield.

Had the pink-haired adolescent not been so bent on avoiding the flames and had actually let some of them graze her even the slightest, she would've been sure to notice that it was only an illusion cast by the still running Ino, whose forte was genjutsu so realistic it messed with your mind—her other greatest talent.

So the medic waited for the flames to recede to attack on her own but, oddly, they didn't flag for far too many seconds on end and Sakura was about to peer over the edge of the large piece of earth she was hiding behind to see what was happening beyond but then another Ino sprung from the flurry at her once more, another Fire technique at the ready and there was little else Sakura could do than cast a film of protective chakra all over her body to shield her from the flames as Ino bellowed,

"Fire Release: Grand Fire Ball Technique!"

The shield was working really well. Sakura couldn't feel a thing from the hellfire that was surrounding her and soon, the onslaught of flames would stop and she'd be able to slam her fist in the ground and put an abrupt stop to Ino's constant running that dizzied her and would put an end to this silly match when it was obvious who was stronger.

Her internal alarms all went off on the same time when she felt something was coming and she leapt up to avoid whatever had caused all her ninja senses to go awry but the pair of hands that broke the surface of the forest floor she had just been standing on were too fast—they caught her in mid-flight and toppled her back to the ground when catching her ankles in their vice-like grip.

Ino's form did not rise from the place her hands had reached out beneath Sakura and the girl could see her, all of Ino but her hands, thrust deep within the ground several feet away from her, looking predatorily at her writhing form, fighting for her balance again with the blonde's appendages who protruded eerily from the ground.

What the hell was going on? Not just one but _two_ elements? That was very improbable. Very few people had the capability of mastering an element in each hand and thus far she only knew Sasuke, Kakashi-sensei and Yamato-taichou to be capable of such a feat at all. One element was more than enough to the regular ninja, and most people had their hands full with it as it was.

And here she was, that Ino, using Earth Element techniques on her.

Ino's face in the distance was slightly blurry when Sakura looked up again to see if she was gloating already… and that's when it hit her.

Looking straight ahead with a smug grin of her own, the Haruno daughter placed her hands in the ram seal in front of her before the now horrified blonde's very eyes and said coolly, "Release!" to dispel the genjutsu that had been cast on her.

She was getting rusty if she hadn't recognized the illusion right away. Had she been fighting only weaklings lately for the qualities of her skills to drop like that?

"Where are you looking, Forehead? I'm right here," a smooth, even voice taunted her and panic seized the girl's whole body when she recognized the source of the voice being right behind her but didn't get a chance to turn.

Tiny but steely firm little cords were wound around her body and, at a tug from Ino's nimble fingers, Sakura's body, ensnared in the trap while being shown that illusion, slammed into a tree trunk, bound to it with the ninja wires. They dug deep into the medic's tender flesh, and as she struggled hard to free herself of them, soon become soaked with her crimson blood.

And there, in front of her, stood the slightly worse for wear Ino, cords in her mouth and hands as she tightened the hold as far as it went, causing her antagonist as much discomfort as possible. Once satisfied, she lowered her arm warmer to her wrist to protect her own skin, wrapping the cord around the material to free her hands to make hand seals.

"Right where I wanted you…" she said barely above a whisper, the look in her eyes positively evil, the promise of much more pain to come looming above the bound girl. She thrashed about some more but it was all for naught—Ino had the ends to those threads and there was hardly a chance she would let go that easily.

The light-haired girl made a few hand signs that her counterpart did not recognize but was certain how they were oriented, and then her whole body went limp in the wires' clutch.

* * *

There was only darkness all around her and it made navigation difficult. She wasn't sure whether she was dreaming or if she was awake but the pain from the friction with the cords from a little while ago was all gone, only the feeling of blissful ignorance remained. 

The idyll was shattered to thousands of tiny pieces the next moment when she heard a voice penetrate her very mind, not taking the time for a detour through her ears to say,

"Did you know, Sakura, how powerful a tool the mind can be when in the right hands?"

Panic bathed her whole body in its ice-cold waters, making her temporary blindness that much more frustrating when knowing the game was still on and she couldn't even see a _damn thing_!

The previous feeling of bliss was replaced by excruciating pain—a kind that she had never before experienced. She moaned in anguish and made to clutch her head but her hands wouldn't obey her mind's orders.

"Damn it," she cursed in a strangled gasp, wriggling out of whatever it was that had a hold on her but nothing seemed to work on it.

And then her sight was back and this purple-dark red nothingness she assumed was her mind and the ropes around her middle that obstructed any movement of any part of her body were probably another technique of Ino's whom she couldn't see in front of her like she had been able to on the Chuunin exam all those years ago.

If the projection of the blonde's intrusion of her body wasn't with her—her inner self, so to say—_where_ was she?

"The hell are those things? They're annoying!" Inner Sakura muttered, frustrated, desperately trying to free herself.

"It's useless trying to remove them, you double-minded freak—it's a technique I made with you in mind, so what happened at our first Chuunin exam may never happen again." There it was again, that eerily soulless yet definitely Ino voice and it was somewhere within her and that gave her the creeps more than anything else in the world could have in that moment.

She was inside her mind.

The mind was in control of practically everything in her—from regulating her bodily processes to deluding her that she was experiencing hellish torture should Ino only wish for her to believe she was.

Sakura had always disapproved of the Yamanaka bloodline techniques. If one delved too deep into an opponent's head, they might cause some permanent damage. The prospect of just what she had always feared happening to her scared the medic senseless and she struggled against the ropes with renewed vigour.

"Shannaro!" she yelled, summoning as much will-power as she could from the darkest recesses of her mind and she could see the ropes loosening but then her power began to ebb away, slowly, bit by bit but she felt it, felt her force retreat somewhere, though she had no idea where. "What the—?"

"If you're wondering, I'm messing up your chakra control, Forehead Girl. Very soon, it will be like you're just a regular girl, because you'll have no reserves to use any of your ninja techniques. I think that pretty much decides who wins and who loses, right?"

Trapped inside her mind, Sakura wriggled futilely against her bounds.

* * *

All the chakra she had avoided using she had thrown at her opponent almost all in a breath. She'd taken control over the other girl's body and after capturing her physically, gone on and imprisoned her mentally as well. Now she was busy sealing all of her tenketsu points by sheer will alone, and while it was a formidable technique it also demanded a lot of concentration and chakra—both she and her antagonist had to be perfectly still for it to work because otherwise her mind would lose track of the tenketsu she'd closed and it would be a half-done job with doubtful results. 

That was why she had pulled such an exaggerated trick to capture Sakura. She no longer needed her soul to leave her body but she had to close her eyes to disregard her surroundings and focus instead on her bound prey's loss of chakra. If something went wrong, that moment of unawareness was more than enough to have her lose important momentum in leading.

She closed them off, one after another, after another, rendering the pink-haired abomination powerless with every tenketsu that she took out of commission but the pig-headedly stubborn creature did not cease to struggle against her hold on her. Couldn't she just get the point and admit to defeat already?

Ino could feel that her mind-bind was fine but there was distinct cracking of twigs and popping of something on the ground, halting her actions for a little while, she saw that Sakura's legs were acting solely on instinct—the drive never to lose to anyone, least of all Ino—and she was uprooting the tree, using her body's position as leverage.

"No way, you're not supposed to do that!" the blonde hissed, incredulous, that her perfected offense had once again been breached, even though the other girl barely had anything but her physical strength left and that would have been the next thing she took care of.

"Shannaro!" growled Sakura's mouth of which her sparring partner had temporarily lost control in her shock but, as the tree's roots came out one after another, Ino's concentration homed in on the threateningly rising girl's body, disconnecting for the time being as many muscles in all her limbs from her mind's command, leaving 'ticking bombs' as well in her wake that would cause the joints to dysfunction should they be overexerted.

And then Sakura stood, tall, tree dripping with the soil that had covered its base, the pink-haired young woman's body bent slightly over the weight of it, an absolutely demented look in her eyes as she swung, the giant trunk following her suit, the wires still attached to Ino's wrist dragging her off-balance and making her a perfect prey to the upper part of the wooden boulder.

There was horrible, blinding pain in her head and her whole body felt heavy. Her platinum hair was dirtied beyond recognition. But most importantly, she could barely feel her body below the neck. She had gone completely numb, the exhilaration of the battle in front of her wearing off on her and the tiredness that had been all she could feel once again resurfacing in the focus of her mind.

But she had to push on, she was so close to winning, she couldn't allow herself to lose now, even though a large tree had just slammed into her full force.

When she moved, something made a sickening crack. Still, she took step after step, wincing at every trudge towards her opponent who was equally as bloodied and foggy minded as her, both breathing hard and ragged, both searching for the last bit of energy within them to make this their win.

Sakura was at her limit. All she had left with her that wasn't tampered with enough to be completely useless was her physical strength and she could feel even that leaving her with every following second. That accursed Ino must have caused a chain-reaction of overwhelming exhaustion to burst in her when she freed herself with the last of her presence in her body and the more time she took to take the next swing at the blonde, the less power she had to use against her.

Ino, on the other hand, felt like a rag but still had a considerable bit of chakra in her. If she managed to stay conscious enough in the fight to channel it to her feet in the final jump she'd do at her opponent, the momentum would be more than enough to swiftly knock the other out and that would be the decisive hit. She had enough chakra to win. She had more than enough will-power to make her body, bent on not cooperating with her, to stand and strike.

She could win. She could prove herself better than Sakura. She would be able to say that she was stronger this time. Anyone looking in on the fight from the side now would be able to say that Ino was stronger. It would be so obvious, so evident, there would be no question this time.

Sakura rose and Ino did as well. They gasped for breath for a second, then two, both their right hands curling into fists, Sakura's glowing with shaky chakra, barely existent, as she ran for her counterpart and Ino's arm pulled as far back as it went, both their left feet touched the ground at the same time, running the same distance, then parting with the green floor for a miniscule moment in time when their arms extended…

Then a pair of loud collisions of knuckles against flesh, jaws tender, both bodies in flight backwards, both girls exhausted, neither ready to go on any further.

Déjà vu.

* * *

Two simultaneous thumps of large things resounded across the clearing, not loud enough to chase away the birds in the tree crowns. 

They lay on their backs, panting for breath, two pairs of unseeing eyes staring upwards towards the sunny heavens above. And they stood like that; still save for the rapid rising and falling of their chests, silent but for the loud ragged breaths that escaped their mouths.

"You held back," Sakura pointed out suddenly, breaking the silence, her voice ringing much more powerful than it should in Ino's ears.

And she had. Ino had had the chakra to knock the other girl out. It was within her grasp to prove once and for all who was stronger, to seal this chapter, to finish with this.

But she hadn't used it.

"You held back and I didn't," said the pink-haired youth sprawled on the ground, her eyes squinting slightly in dejection.

They had tied, again, but Sakura felt like she hadn't an ounce of energy left in her and Ino probably did. They had tied for the second time in their second serious fight like this but this time only because Ino had held back.

"Why did you pull your punch?"

And there was only silence in answer to her query. Not because the blonde was being stubborn—she didn't have the energy to even be headstrong anymore—but because she had no idea what to say herself.

Why _had_ she pulled her punch? Why hadn't she been able to just knock the other girl out for good? Wasn't that what she wanted? Wasn't that she aimed to prove?

Did she have scruples? Did she feel like it would be better to leave Sakura to believe that she was still weaker, even if other people would be able to tell her that there was still hope since they have tied? Holding back in such moments was the same as acting condescending, pulling your punches just out of pity. It was that that she wanted Sakura to believe, was it not?

"Hey, Ino…" The girl pulled her from her thoughts again, her voice gentle and weak. It wavered, as though she was just about to cry. Ino was glad she couldn't see her. She was the one who wanted to cry. "What happened to us?"

'_Team 7 did_,' was on the tip of the blonde's tongue but she somehow just couldn't bring herself to say it out loud.

She gave a long suffering sigh and closed her eyes, feeling acutely all the aching places over her body. _So tired_…

"I don't know, Sakura… I don't know…" the half-conscious part of her said and the wind blew, rustling the leaves of the trees above them.

"Why are you angry with me, Ino?" The question drifted to the almost passed out adolescent through the thick fog that was enveloping her head and her hazy mind barely registered it and that an answer was expected of her.

She heard Sakura shift and the next moment she was looming above her, her arm that supported her weight shaking violently. But it was the look on her face that sent a pang of guilt up the lying girl's spine.

What could she say to that?

_Why_ was she angry?

_Was_ she angry?

She was just stressed and she had taken it out on her friend who had been the most convenient person at the time.

What was stressing her?

Could she really say it?

There was no way she was telling Sakura about her temporary loss of coherence of thought.

It would be a cold day in Hell before Ino said her suspicions aloud, especially to anyone but the guy himself. He would be the first person to know if she ever decided to make it an outspoken fact or no one else but she would _ever_ know.

She was rescued from having to evade the question or, worse, lie to her best friend when someone made their way over to them. She looked up, pain shooting over her entire body from the effort, but the jolt she got from seeing who was standing before the two of them was much more powerful.

Naruto stood there, a gentle smile on his face as he watched them, lying and broken on the ground, pretty faces smudged with grime, sweat and blood. His hands were jammed into his pockets; his figure slightly slouched back as he observed their confusedly blinking expressions.

"Did you work out your differences?" He asked good-naturedly, his smile turning into a knowing grin. "Whoever said fighting doesn't solve problems must have been a weak wuss afraid of getting a little dirty."

"And since when did you turn into such a philosopher, eh?" asked Sakura above her, a dubious smirk on her face as Naruto approached their fallen forms.

Suddenly, Ino didn't want him to come closer. She didn't want to be shown again that he cared more about Sakura than her, even when both of them were equally roughed up. She didn't want to see him go to her side _first_, see how _she_ was before checking on her, didn't want to be rejected in yet another way. She had had enough disappointment in one day. She was at her limit and she wasn't sure she wouldn't burst if she tried to force another one on her already weakened mentality.

She just wanted to fast forward to the next day, when all she'd have to worry about would be the wounds all over her body and the chakra depletion, when her mind would be too numb with pain to worry over her mental issues.

She just wanted to rest because she was _exhausted_…

So, she surrendered herself completely to her pain, promptly passing out from the overwhelming of emotions and the adrenaline leaving her system completely.

And her wish was granted—she didn't get to see Naruto rush to her side, didn't see him and Sakura huddling over her, fussing over her reason for fainting, didn't feel Sakura raise her upper body with shaking limbs giving out from severe muscle abuse, didn't feel Naruto's overlarge for her much smaller shoulders top envelop her whole torso, didn't sense him scooping her up as carefully as he could, lifting her limp form from the ground and offering only words of apology and encouragement at the struggling to rise Sakura.

Would she have wanted to know this if she knew it would happen? Would it make any difference at all?

* * *

Maybe that had been her goal when taking up Sakura on that spar. 

She had just wanted a worthy opponent who she knew wouldn't go easy on her, who would burn her out completely to the point of utter chakra depletion, muscle failure and blacking out. She had needed someone on whom to use her mind control techniques so her own head would be peaceful when she surrendered to the darkness this time. In order to make sure there would be no nightmares, she needed to be exhausted not only mentally from all the torture she'd been putting herself through but physically as well.

The rest she got after passing out was the best she had had in days.

And just how pathetic was that?

She stirred from her dreamless sleep and found herself wrapped in an overlarge male jacket, in a bed she didn't recognize, next to a very familiar face.

Next to her lay Sakura, still fast asleep, drained from their fight.

As quietly as she could, she shrugged the jacket off and, wincing because of the jabs of pain that shot throughout her entire being at the movement, she slid noiselessly off the bed and out of the room, the bedroom door clicking closed beneath her fingers meant to muffle the sound further.

When she turned around, she saw Naruto, lying asleep on the couch, mouth hanging open widely, snoring the evening away.

She sighed and turned on her heel and, limping slightly, made her exit from the apartment that she was soon to share with her fellow blonde.

* * *

A couple of days later found all her possessions in her own flat packed in cardboard boxes, ready for moving. She surveyed the abode critically, wondering if she'd be able to leave all her fears and discomfort behind with this old place, the pain of the memories and the suffering of her troubled mind. 

After her fight with Sakura she had reverted back to the awfully uneventful days and horrible nightly visions but she paid them no heed anymore. She woke with a start each day, her mind frantic, her heartbeat even more so, but her face drawn into an indifferent, passive façade, pretending that everything was fine. After all, she was good at it—pretending.

She could pretend for Sakura she was alright. She could plaster a plastic smile on her face and hope to fool everyone that she was fine. She could turn to make-up or even genjutsu—though what a total waste of chakra daily _that_ would be—to conceal the traces of her restless nights. She could use that odd new voice and mask it with false cheeriness because she was Yamanaka Ino and things always went her way when she wanted them to.

She made her way downstairs, where Naruto and Sakura were waiting for her to come and tell them when she was ready so they could all get the boxes to their new place together, so she wouldn't have to break her back over the moving alone.

After exploding like that in their fight, the pink-haired kunoichi of Team Seven had switched back to the meek sweetness and reassuring smiles, as though mimicking Naruto's behaviour. Ino didn't care enough to get irritated over other people's feigned humbleness. It wouldn't be fair of her in the first place either, because, hey, she was feigning smiles and laughs herself.

She found the two teammates, laughing together at some inside joke she wasn't privy to and, upon her arrival, turned their grinning faces to her which she met with a grin on her own, one that stretched her facial muscles painfully, then she gestured them to come with her.

It displeased her beyond belief to leave the two of them alone together. Her overactive imagination conjured up horrible scenarios of what could be going on behind her back, even though she knew that kind of thing wouldn't happen and, even if it did, she would know, if anything because of the look that would surely be on the blonde goof's face.

She knew she was being needlessly paranoid and obsessive over something, _someone_, that wasn't even hers but she couldn't stop it for some reason. She tried to strangle those feelings, the grotesque envy that boiled in the pit of her gut whenever she saw the pink-haired girl talk to her future roommate. She buried the feelings but they just came back to haunt her, just like her nightmares did.

She still didn't have the answer, didn't have a clue to the cure, but she moved out of her apartment with her two most precious people at her sides and, even in her distraught state, she hoped that she'd be able to heal, some time, and be the person that she'd raised herself to be.

* * *

Ino had always prized her quality in packing and unpacking her things quite quickly. She might be dubbed a vain girl by her peers for her looks and the amount of time they believed her to spend in front of the mirror but she didn't much care for the arrangements of her clothes on the hangers, the disarray in which her weapons may lie in her cupboard and it was easy to unload her bags once she arrived at her new abode. 

It looked homely and pleasant but her room, once again, held the distinct feeling of remote coldness and discomfort.

The bed was comfy and the covers were soft but the thorns in her side were still there, ever present, making her very aware that changing the location didn't change her mindset, however she wished it were that way.

That night, her first as the blonde demon vessel's roomie, her new sheets were just as soaked with her sweat as the ones in her old home had been, the crimson of the overbearing orbs just as bright and the monsters inside her mind just as vivid.

She woke up with a jerk of her whole upper half, small rivers trickling down the sides of her face, droplet after droplet falling on the white covers around her.

Haziness around her head finally dispersing and mind finally landing on solid ground, Ino sighed deeply, exhaustion puncturing her every cell as she did so. She'd give an arm and a leg for that freedom she so longed for but she had the sneaking suspicion that crippling herself would do nothing to release her from the torment of her mentality.

She shuffled out of the bed, her feet numb enough not to care for slippers, pads slapping barely audible against the floorboards beneath them.

The girl had in mind to roam about the apartment for a bit and then to try to sleep again but she saw the television set in the living room casting its bright colourful light on the furniture and moved to look at the couch from the side.

Sure enough, Naruto stood there, a steaming cup in his hand, another placed on the coffee table in front of him and his other hand grabbing industrial quantities of crackers that he threw in his mouth piece by piece.

Her brows knitted in confusion when he turned his unreadable expression to her.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked and she found the answer too obvious to indulge the query with a retort and he seemed to be fine with that decision of hers, because he continued. "Neither could I—sit over here; it's a really nice sofa!"

She padded towards him and sat at his side, her mind not completely with her as she did so, but then again she was starting to grow accustomed to the feeling of being out of it. She fidgeted for a bit, finding a comfortable spot but that was a bit of a feat, considering she had cramps all over her body from not resting well for more than a week.

A hand extended, the one that had been busy with crackers—which were now within her reach too, she noted—and the second steaming cup was in its clutch, looking absolutely tempting with its inviting warmth. Seeing no excuse not to accept it, Ino took the proffered beverage, a little sigh of content escaping her after gulping down the refreshing liquid which made the heat it emitted spread all inside her from her stomach.

"Hot chocolate does wonders for fried nerves, doesn't it?" her companion questioned rhetorically and she nodded dumbly, nothing intelligent to say coming to mind.

The next time she was brought out from her reverie was to have a large shirt draped over her exposed shoulders. She shot a questioning look at her friend who smiled back.

"It gets cold here in the nights, so you'd be wise to resort to more layers of clothing."

She didn't say anything to that, and they relapsed in companionable silence once more.

"You knew, didn't you?" she broke the stillness between them after staring blankly at the constantly changing pictures on the television for a while.

He could have pretended he didn't know what she was talking about but instead he just nodded and took a gulp of his own hot chocolate.

"Even your co-workers know, Ino. Someone had to do something about it." He paused, looking at her out of the corner of his brilliant cerulean eye. "Are you resentful that my offer to live together has an ulterior motive?"

She thought about it for enough time to make him feel uneasy about what she'd say next but the smile—the tiny but very much _real_ smile—she broke into cast all his fears away in the bat of an eyelash.

"No—I'm grateful for the ulterior motive," she admitted truthfully, taking another sip of her drink. After all, if it wasn't for his so-called 'ulterior motive', he wouldn't have asked her move in with him. And, while that might be painful in many ways—having to see Sakura more often, seeing the two of them enjoying themselves together and all that—she wouldn't trade places with anyone for the world.

She relaxed against the cushiony backrest of the couch, sinking into the warmth her own body emitted, Naruto's shirt keeping said warmth from fleeing her. After a minute, the prickly feeling on the back of her head made her acutely aware of the gaze on her.

Ino turned and met her roommate's gaze with her own, both equally intense.

"What?" she asked neutrally, unsure how to react to such attention in her inadequate state.

Naruto laughed lightly and she was almost reduced to a shivering puddle on the sofa from the sound of his carefree voice.

"Nothing; I was just savoring the sight of the first genuine smile you've shown me in weeks."

For once she was glad for the cover of the darkness because it obstructed her deep blush from his piercing eyes. Self-conscious still, she took a bit too large a gulp and it took all her will-power to swallow decently before she had the chance to break into a coughing fit that would've been a bit too conspicuous after hearing something like that.

And she felt lighter at heart, safer and calmer at once. She wanted the feeling to last. She wanted to be herself again so she would be able to smile at him all the time, to reciprocate his constant cheerfulness, not to give his endearing grin a reason to fall from his face.

She'd hated herself for the feelings that he begot in her but maybe instead she should've just embraced them and cherished them, not forcing them further, turning them into fantasies that would most probably never come true.

She'd hated Sakura for something she was not responsible for, something the pink-haired girl hadn't even _wished for_, as Ino remembered were her exact words back in the day. She'd been a fool to blame others for her misfortune, for her unhappiness because she was the only one in charge of her life and moods, she was the only one standing between herself and her freedom.

She was the one torturing herself. And why? What for? Over silly desires and childishly petulant feats? How could her mind scream so selfishly '_Love me instead!_' when even she didn't _like_ what she had become? She was a hypocrite and a shallow, shallow girl.

She'd had a little taste of Naruto's kindness and taken it too much to heart, became greedy for more and to be the only recipient of it, to be a most special person for him so he'd treat her better than anyone else, so he'd make her feel good about herself.

How self-centered and horrible she'd been.

How childish and completely immature her reasons had been—she was disgusted with herself at the sudden revelation.

She had been angry at Sakura for being the object of his affections but her friend was doing the right thing, not giving Naruto any reason to hold onto any false hope, not giving him any straws to hold onto in desperation. Would she have been able to do the thing if she was in her shoes?

She had acted like a spoilt brat, throwing tantrums over things that were not in her power to control, beyond her reach to change. And she was glad now that they were because she might have made a grave mistake.

She had held back in her fight with Sakura because she didn't want to end their friendship—did the other girl know that? She hadn't beaten her completely and unconditionally because that would mean the end of an era to her, it would truly seal a chapter in her life as far as Ino was concerned and she didn't want that—did Sakura know this? She didn't want to lose her closest girlfriend because she'd been her support and her emotional crutch so many times before and losing her now would feel like a part of her would die with the loss of a friend too.

She had been angry with Sakura because she hadn't been there with her to hold her hand after her parents passed away because she had needed her dearly at that time, missed her terribly, thought that she'd never get any kindness from anyone, not the way her parents had showered her with it. And Sakura, her voice of reason, had been nowhere to be found, nowhere to be seen to tell her that no, life didn't end when your folks died, that she would go on and that she would be happy again some day, and that Sakura would be by her side through it all—sadness, pain and happiness too, because that's what friends were for.

She had been resentful because Sakura hadn't seen the darkness in her enveloping her being until she became someone she hated. She hadn't been there to see her sink in her sorrowful emotions, drowning in grief and fear. She'd complained to herself for not having her best buddy at her side when she needed her, when her presence would make a difference and had turned on her in an attempt to soothe her raging spirit.

She had held onto Naruto for dear life, fooling herself that he was the solution to all her problems, that he would ride in on a tall horse and save her from herself.

Instead, she should've realized that he could only show her path that she had to walk herself; that she was the only one who could save her from herself because what was happening in her mind was her entire fault, all her doing, all in her power to stop or not.

Once, she had been sharp and strong enough to know that on her own, to reach that conclusion herself but what remained with her that night on the sofa was only a shadow of her old self.

And she would make sure to revive the old Ino, to make the fire inside her burn bright once again, bright enough to cast away the darkness inside her that had taken control of her life for just a week and almost had her make atrocious mistakes that she'd wonder afterwards how to fix.

She needed to move on, grow up and face the world.

She looked to her side, with newfound resolution in her eyes, as Naruto stretched and yawned widely, finding a more comfortable position for his limbs.

"Stay as long as you wish, Ino-chan, and make yourself at home, 'kay?" he told her off-handily, his eyes bleary with sleep as he relaxed back.

Ino stared at him for a second longer; downing her cup in a gulp and placing it gently back onto the coffee table and shifting closer to the male's larger form until their sides were touching. A puzzled expression was etched onto his sharp features when she placed her blond head on the crook of his neck, eyes forward to the television set that was still on.

"Would you mind if I stay like this for a while?" Being so close to him had a cleansing effect on her very soul. "It's nice this way."

She felt only the slow rise and fall of his broad ribcage for a while as he debated her question over in his mind, and she almost asleep by the time he decided to retort.

"Sure, Ino-chan, if you're fine with it."

Her feelings hadn't changed between the time she self-consciously avoided even his gaze and when she boldly announced she'd use him as a pillow and her decision to pull herself together on her own would not make them diminish—not in the slightest. The only thing that had changed in those past few minutes was her perception of them, and the way she dealt with her emotions on the matter.

She would learn to appreciate what she had instead of selfishly wanting more and more. She would become the person she believed she was and she would no longer be ashamed to look in the mirror or to hold her head up high.

Ino had already made the first and most important step to solving her problem.

The rest was hard work and some of her roommate's one of a kind purifying quality.

She'd make living together with her crush, with whom she was on strictly friendly terms, the best thing she'd ever decided to do!

* * *

_About 17,500 words in twenty-eight Word pages, people, congratulations on reading them all! __Officially the longest chapter thus far, this is. (laughs) And they__'re now even proof-read. T__ook me quite a while, for which I profusely apologize but with monstrously huge chapters like these there are recuperation periods when one needs not to even look at the thing for a while before getting back to writing it. That and school started, so I'm constantly going back and forth across the country and that's quite muse slaughtering. Another thing that I__'m selfishly going to ask you to overlook is to horrible quality and shabbiness of the development. I did my best to stitch it together well but it didn__'t come out as I planned it to. So far, the longest **and** most dissatisfying chapter on this story but, oh well, everyone has these days, right? And if I don__'t__ update now, I have no clue when I will, so it will have to be left at that, sorry again.  
_

_Before you complain about the angstiness and how out of character Ino was in this chapter, I'll st__op you and tell you that it was purely __**intentional**__. It was supposed to show that Ino has hit rock bottom in this chapter and there's nowhere else for her to go from there but up. I couldn't convey exactly how very tired of it she was but do your best to imagine, right? (winks) So, no worries, next chapter will not have that much melodrama, so you can breathe a sigh of relief.  
_

_And another thing—since quite a number of people complained that there is not enough ninja-ness in this story and it lacked some fight, (and frankly, I thought those of you who pointed it out were absolutely correct) this chapter is an attempt of mine to make up for the lack of action. __It sucks and it's horrible but it's as good as it gets with me—that's why I avoid fight scenes, because I'm terrible at writing them. I love watching them, I love reading them but I can't write them. It's just the way it is._

_Also, I noticed that I'm not turning much attention to Naruto's character development. My sincerest apologies to anyone who noticed that as well and was bothered by it. Hopefully next chapters, since they would be focusing more on Naruto the way I have planned them for now, will make up for that too. Did Sakura get enough screen time attention? Do you like her the way I made her? Because, sincerely, since this chapter, I think I myself like her a bit more._

_You should know by now that I__'m quite averse to using Japanese words in my chapters, since I__'m writing in English. But I couldn__'t fish for a translation to _"_Shannaro_" _as good as the original so I left it at that. Hope that you guys don__'t mind it too much, or my jutsu translations. (laughs sheepishly)  
_

_Has anyone noticed __**why**__ the chapters are so huge? I'll give you a hint—notice the chapter titles, although this one is more of an interlude one than anything, although a very important interlude it is. You guessed it—it's all the stages Naruto and Ino will go through before getting together. So, look out for the chapter titles—they'll give you a clue what might go on in the chapter. (winks)_

_Sorry for the long note and please do tell something. It really set me off seeing that there are a hundred people who care enough to watch this story for updates but not quite enough to even say a fucking __**word**__ about it. I'm not going to stop writing or make the updates rarer just because of that, but don't be selfish, readers. I spend quite a large amount of time writing for you; can't you spend a tiny amount of yours to give me your opinion on what I've written? It's just rude, the way I see it is right now._

_On a brighter note, next chapter should delve more into the amusing side of life and __**why exactly**__ do boys and girls not share apartments except if they're dating._

_So s__tay tuned and see the range of experiences this story will give you before its completion!_

_Anyway, enough ranting from me! Feedback is love!_


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